Crashing in Time
by Siamesa
Summary: Anakin. Time travel. Force ghosts. They were not, as Obi-Wan was to discover, the greatest combination any more than they were the worst. Time travel AU
1. Chapter 1

His ship had crashed

His ship had crashed. _His _ship. A ship _he _was flying.

This, thought Anakin, did not compute. His ships did not crash- that one time had been Obi-Wan's fault, anyway- and particularly not here.

Not in this place that looked so much like Tatooine that, to be honest, he'd almost prefer to leave it to the Separatists.

They hadn't told him it looked like this. Of course, the Council always left out helpful little details like that.

The young man kicked the sand in front of him, and it flew up in a haze of stinging, evil particles.

_Sith, I hate sand._

-

The town he'd crashed outside of was bustling. A distinct aura of lawlessness permeated it, and Anakin growled. How in the world did Tatooine get a twin planet on the other side of the galaxy? He could swear this was Mos Eisley.

_Sith, I hate Mos Eisley._

There were no signs of obvious Separatist presence, which was a relief. Obviously the droid armies hadn't reached this point yet. The reports were probably sent in by some panicked local leader who saw threats in every shadow of a freighter.

The Jedi sighed. Wherever the new threat was, he wasn't going to be able to get to it without his ship. And as at least half of the components in the sublight engines had fried beyond repair- _how_ had that happened? _His ships didn't crash-_ he would need to purchase parts.

_Is this a test, Force? I really don't want a test right now._

As informing a mystical energy field that he was incredibly ticked off at it did not seem to be having any effects, the newly-made Knight was forced to enter the nearest parts shop.

Thank _everything,_ the strange across-the-galaxy Twin-tooine apparently contained no clone of the shop he'd been enslaved in, at least not here. This store, apparently run by the fat purple Twi'lek behind the counter, appeared to be mostly in worse condition than Anakin's crashed fighter, but it did feature disorganized heaps of parts that promised deals and haggling.

Or mind tricks. Anakin racked his brain. Did cheating store owners lead to the Dark Side? It seemed doubtful. But it probably _would_ lead to an "I-know-you're-not-my-Padawan-any-more-but-I'm-still-ashamed-of/worried-about-you" discussion with Obi-Wan, so it probably wasn't worth it.

-

The Jedi rapidly spotted the few small parts that would hold his engines together for long enough to return to the temple. And probably face the Council for Abandoning His Mission, but he'd cross that bridge when he got there.

"Name?" inquired the Twi'lek boredly.

"Name?"

"We're holding a ship raffle," grumbled the cashier, as if the very idea of ship raffles was completely Anakin's fault. He pointed lethargically towards a crumbling poster featuring two dancing girls, a Hutt, and a ship. "We need your name."

_Hmm, _thought the Jedi. He'd never seen that particular class of ship before- was it something patched together? An illegal model? How fast was it?

_It's just a raffle,_ he decided. _I probably won't win, and if I do I'll find a way around the whole "no possessions" deal._

_Stupid Jedi code._

"Name?" grunted the Twi'lek again.

"Please keep it quiet, but- Anakin Skywalker," whispered the Jedi.

He expected some hero-worship, perhaps minor adulation. A "Hey! Why don't we just give you the ship then, Jedi sir, as you saved my cousin's girlfriend's brother's life!"

Or the guy could be a Separatist. Mildly problematic, but he could always just steal the parts in the middle of the battle and claim that he'd found them in the shop's ruins.

What Anakin did not expect from the middle-aged Twi'lek was raucous laughter. "Oh, sure, sonny. And I'm Jabba the Hutt. S'rusly, if you've gotta use a fake name, don't try some traitor-hero from the Clone Wars. I mean, sonny, how stupid do you think I-"

This was really too much to deal with, even for a one-of-a-kind ship. Anakin drew and ignited his lightsaber, waving it in the being's alarmed purple face.

"I'm Skywalker," he repeated, the point of his lightsaber almost in the unfortunate cashier's nose.

This, of course, was perhaps not a good thing to say and do with several Imperial Troopers directly behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Note: First off- yay! Thank you, reviewers. You are awesome. Secondly, this one's a bit longer, more around the length most of the rest of the chapters will be, but still rather short. I just write short better than long... Anyway, to disclaim, I do not own Star Wars.**

**Lou**

* * *

It had been an agonizingly normal day for TG-12

It had been an agonizingly normal day for TG-12. He'd been patrolling what had to be the single most irritating planet in existence- Tatooine, curse it- in boiling temperatures and heavy armor, and for the five hundred and thirty third day in a row, there was no sign of anything even remotely interesting to his superiors.

Oh, sure, there were riots, and smugglers, and murders, and really, really horrendous music- TG-12 _hated _at least ninety percent of the cantina bands- but his superiors were interested in one thing only.

Jedi.

Just because some lunatic in a bar more than three years ago _happened_ to have a lightsaber, and some random Imperial bigwig just _had_ to let it slip to various Important Government Leaders, he, an innocent trooper, was stuck in a giant sandpit orbiting two suns, on a chase for something that _no longer existed._

They had drilled that into everyone quite well during training. The Jedi were gone.

There was no reason, short of pure, horrid luck, that he should even have been here instead of somewhere nice. _Somewhere with water. Or even snow._

"You!" shrieked a voice from behind him frantically. "TG!"

The trooper whirled, his armor clanking, to see one of his fellows dashing frantically towards him.

"Call for backup!" the figure screeched. "We've got-"

A sudden _something_ slammed both of them across the street and into the outer wall of a cantina.

_Stang, _thought TG, staring at the figure that was emerging from the now smoking store across from them.

_Jedi._

-

Across the galaxy, surprisingly near to where Anakin was supposed to have been sent two decades ago, Luke Skywalker woke up. For a second, his heart raced- what in the world- he could have sworn that – huh?

His mind shook off the remains of his dream, wondering why he'd suddenly broken out of it. He'd been in a forest, flying, with a bunch of _somethings_ chasing him, and then with a jolt of adrenaline- he'd woken up.

Aboard the medical frigate, lying in a cot, and, oh yeah. Life crashed back down on him. His X-wing had taken a nasty hit in the last skirmish, and in the resulting spin he'd knocked his head.

The medical droid had informed him that he didn't seem to have any lasting damage, (though Threepio had done his best to list every possible thing that could be wrong anyway) and the lump on his scalp had gone down a bit.

_Well, it went better than my last battle, _went a sarcastic bit of his mind.

Luke slowly clambered out of the medical cot. It was the middle of the frigate's night cycle, but that would just give him a bit of quiet. Over the past few weeks, he'd been trying to figure out how the old Jedi had created their lightsabers. There wasn't much in the ship's very sparse library (mostly How To Fix Everything But What Is Actually Wrong With The Hyperdrive, Ha-Ha, from his experience), but lately holonet research was at least proving to be more time-consuming. Luke knew he wouldn't find anything useful- the Empire weren't idiotic enough to just leave Jedi secrets on an information highway that they controlled- but it gave him something to do when there wasn't a battle or news from Chewie.

Sighing, the Jedi in training keyed his various codes into a rickety holonet receiver that probably dated to before the Clone Wars.

"Luke?"

The man jumped. "Leia?" He supposed she couldn't sleep either.

"I was just going to get you up," said the woman. "But you seemed to be in here."

What in the world couldn't wait until morning? They hadn't found out about- maybe it was a blessing. He'd at least know if what his… father… had said was true. Even if he did know that already. There was a difference between a feeling and facts, though...

Luke bowed his head, awaiting the judgment he was sure would come.

"Our spies sent us a classified Imperial message- someone's reported a Jedi on Tatooine."

-

Anakin had not expected to be attacked by clone troopers. Crouching in the rafters of the store, he ran the situation rapidly through his head. They hadn't looked like normal troops- a different helmet, for one thing- and that was reason enough to be highly suspicious. Could the Separatists have acquired a clone army? Certainly the clones were superior to droids, but they took a while to grow and create- had Dooku really managed to hide a plan that complex from the Jedi?

_Well, considering the Sith managed to hide their entire existence until Maul…_

Outside, the clone yelled for backup, his companion sprawled on the floor. The Jedi wasn't sure if he had killed his adversary- he'd hit the trooper fairly hard on the head, but there was a large part of him averse to the destruction of what should be Republic troops.

Ah, well. He could sense that another soldier was coming, and it was time to make his escape. The man blasted the two troopers with the force as he leapt from the rafters to the floor of the shop, sending them sprawling into the buildings across the dusty street.

Leaping onto the low roof of that same building, Anakin ran across several more before dropping into an alleyway. Spotting a group of used landspeeders propped next to a Huttese "For Sale" sign, the Jedi jumped into one of them and threw some credit chips at the stocky human manning the stall.

_Old Republic credits? _thought the merchant in annoyance. "Hey, what kinda game-"

But Anakin had sped away, a grim smile beginning to spread across his face.

Oh, well. That speeder'd been in and out of this shop since that boy had dropped it off three years ago. Kept breakin' down.

-

_Sith!_ _I hate this speeder!_

The stupid piece of junk had apparently decided that out in the middle of nowhere was an acceptable place to sputter in midair and drop a few feet to the dunes below it. It was nothing Anakin wasn't going to be able to fix- just a couple of messed up wires that kept slipping out of place- but it was the principle of the thing. Two vehicles had broken down on him within a day- not unprecedented, certainly, but irritating.

This had to be the worst mission ever.

_Stupid Council. Stupid Twin-tooine. Stupid wires…_

All of them were imbeciles. Even the planet and the wires. All of them were clearly engaged in some sort of conspiracy to bring him down.

When he got home, he decided, he was taking a break. If the Council could afford to send the Hero With No Fear on dead-end missions to desert planets with no Separatists, then they could afford for said hero to spend at least a few days at home discussing politics with the Senator from Naboo.

Or whatever his latest cover story was. Still angry, the Jedi almost ripped the wires from the engine of the speeder.

_Crashing ships, messing up repairs… What is with me?_

He'd never seen this type of speeder before, either. It wasn't precisely in top notch condition, but the engine was fascinating. By all rights, it should be in a cutting edge war machine, not some farmer's speeder. What a waste. He'd bring this back home with him instead of the ship that he seriously doubted he still stood a chance of winning in the raffle. Wait-

Maybe this mission had a point after all.

"If this is an enemy planet," muttered the Jedi, "they must be- stay put, you stinking wire- developing new engine technology of sorts."

Of course! Somewhere on this plant was a Separatist laboratory. Unscrupulous locals were either finding, stealing, or being bribed with some of the new equipment, and…

And that still didn't explain what a high-tech, cutting-edge engine was doing in a broken-down landspeeder.

-

"Milord!"

The holograms voice was almost relieved- not typically the reaction of someone who had unexpectedly contacted Darth Vader.

And under normal circumstances, the lieutenant posted at the Tatooine base wouldn't have contacted the Emperor's right hand whatever-he-was if offered a million credits. But Riggins was in fact near-thrilled that he hadn't had to send his message- which was classified anyway- through a chain of _Executor_ crewmembers.

"What?" inquired the Sith menacingly. The code on the message had been high-level clearance only. There were only a few reasons someone would send one of those, and Lieutenant Riggins' location would've been really too coincidental if this message wasn't what Vader hoped it was.

The incompetent fools had actually managed to find his son. He was surprised he'd received no feeling of this- but this message had to be about-

"There's been a report of a Jedi, milord. Attempting to buy something at a local store, had to give his name for some reason-"

Riggins gulped. He'd been a very small boy during the Clone Wars, but that didn't mean he didn't remember this name. If the Jedi had given his real name- the Empire could have a problem if even half the old legends were true.

"He said his name was Anakin Skywalker, milord."

The connection abruptly shut off.

-

Darth Vader banged his fist on the off switch of the projector a second time for emphasis. Of all names for Luke to travel under- why in the galaxy _that _one? It had a number of alarming possible meanings, almost all of which did not bode well for the Sith's plans to overthrow the Emperor. Certainly, it at least meant that the boy was not yet accepting of the truth about his father.

Unless, of course, Luke wanted to be found…

Vader supposed that someone foolish enough to come charging into a carbon freezing chamber half-trained to fight the man who'd eradicated the Jedi _might _be foolish enough to construct a convoluted plan that was some sort of half-baked trap, thinking that maybe he could defeat his father _this _time.

But he doubted it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Note: And another daily update! Updates are going to continue at this pace for the next few chapters at least- I've got 40 pages of this thing on my computer, and it's growing rapidly.**

**Another thanks to the reviewers. You guys have made my week! **

**I lay no claim to Star Wars.**

**Lou.**

* * *

It was not possible to be _bored_, per se, when one was one with the Force. Certainly the universe was interesting, he could go anywhere- no, Obi-Wan was not bored. He was merely restless. Irritated. Had no clue what to do with himself.

He'd spent perhaps more time than he would have ideally lately chatting with Yoda, who was not the most interesting of conversation partners. As upset as Obi-Wan was that the Jedi Master was dying, surely Yoda could find some way of having a conversation not consisting almost completely of platitudes.

Obi-Wan was a fairly important part of the saving-the-galaxy plan. He felt he was at least entitled to a few more details about what the plan now involved.

So, as he'd found himself doing far, far, too much these latest months, he was sitting slightly crouched in Yoda's hut, watching the Master cook.

Yoda would occasionally note Obi-Wan's presence, but seemed uninclined to chat today. Obi-Wan was mildly surprised that anything lately would make him long for the _thrilling excitement_ of a chat with Yoda- certainly during his years of exile he'd have welcomed one, but enough was enough- but the Jedi Master's silence was even less stirring.

That was when the Force was Disturbed.

Being part of the Force now, Obi-Wan felt the disturbance more clearly than he once did. It was rather like being dunked into a pool on Hoth, but over as soon as it had begun, leaving only a strange ripple pointing off into the distance.

Yoda's head jerked, and he turned around slowly to stare at Obi-Wan.

Then the greatest of the surviving Jedi began to chuckle softly.

Obi-Wan stared at the small green figure in alarm. "Master Yoda-"

"Go you will," said Yoda.

-

Obediently if rather bemusedly, Obi-Wan Kenobi set off on the trail of the Disturbance in the Force. He couldn't figure out an explanation for it- as he got nearer to the source, it was as if someone had ripped out a portion of space and then set it on fire. On the positive side of things, this made it much easier to track.

Of all places, the trail led to Tatooine.

The Jedi's first thought was that it might be Luke in trouble. There was something about the aura that reminded Obi-Wan of the boy, and of course he'd be going after that friend of his.

The aura was much more like someone else, though, and that was what concerned the Jedi. _I'm going to really regret lying to Luke, aren't I?_

Even with this slight mental preparation, once Obi-Wan arrived at the planet, headed out into the Dune Sea far too close to his old hut, and coasted over a large sand dune-_ if I had a clue what I was looking for, I could just appear there-_ he was more shocked than he had been in a while.

Quite a while.

Maybe ever.

Because that was- that couldn't be- how in the worlds- that was _Anakin._

The Force-ghost made a small, incomprehensible choking sound. _How in the… _Was his erstwhile friend a ghost now? He'd have surely sensed _that_, if only by the sound of the galactic-wide party the Rebellion would hold.

But, no, the Anakin figure was alive.

He was clearly engrossed in the engine of a battered landspeeder- probably, thought a smiling part of Obi-Wan's mind that had been battered into pieces years ago, trying to get it to move faster than any decent sentient wanted to go- and the Jedi Knight could almost read his thoughts.

For a second, he was fighting the Clone Wars again.

_I hate you!_

The man leaning over the speeder engine spun around in response to the sudden anguish in the Force.

-

There was something transparent several feet from Anakin.

It was not that this was too unusual, except that the transparent-thing wasn't a hologram chastising him for something ridiculous.

The Jedi was on his feet in milliseconds, lightsaber ignited. "What are you?" The thing had sent a definite negative feeling his way- pain, betrayal, something- and that could mean nothing good.

But there was something almost familiar about it…

The thing seemed to be trying to say something.

"Well?" demanded Anakin. He had absolutely no clue if he could fight transparent-ghost-things, but at the very least he was going to scare it.

"How…" whispered the ghost. It seemed to Anakin as if the thing was too shocked for words or something.

"It's a lightsaber," the Jedi informed him angrily. "Plasma. Crystals. Those things."

"I know that very well, Anakin," said the ghost in a very familiar automatic tone.

"What- _Obi-Wan?"_

It was. Anakin had absolutely no idea how it was, but the freaky blue glowing ghost-_thing _was _Obi-Wan._

"Why are you- _old_? And transparent?"

Obi-Wan stared at the man who'd killed him, a smile spreading across his face in spite of everything. "The question, Anakin, is why you are here."

_Why I'm here?_ That made no sense to the Jedi, even less than the transparent-old-Obi-Wan. "I got sent on a mission, Obi-Wan. The ship _crashed_," he paused to nurse his wounded ego, "and there aren't even any Separatists. Some clones shot at me, a sithspawned merchant laughed at me, and this fancy engine thing keeps breaking down. _And there aren't any Separatists._"

"Anakin…" Obi-Wan cleared his throat nervously. "The Clone Wars ended twenty years ago." _As did the Republic. And you._

-

The howl in the force was really quite alarming. Force-sensitives, escaped Jedi, Sith Lords- for a brief second, all of them felt as if someone was screaming the word "_**WRONG!**_" into their ears in the volume of an outraged Bantha.

Luke Skywalker, in the middle of loading up his X-Wing with provisions and sunscreen, jumped, much to the amusement of Rogue Squadron, all of whom credited each other.

The Emperor, for the first time in several decades, had absolutely no clue what had just happened, because for what he thought at least was the first time in a few decades, Not Everything Was Proceeding As He Had Foreseen. Immediately squelching his consternation, he set about figuring the howl out and how to turn it to his advantage.

Darth Vader, staring out of the _Executor's _windows as the star lines streaked into hyperspace, recognized something for a brief second before discarding it as clearly unimportant- probably. Certainly, it was irrelevant to finding his son, though he supposed it could be helpful- seeing as it was coming from his destination.

And on Dagobah, Master Yoda interrupted his mid-early afternoon meditation to make a 'hrmph' noise. "Always melodramatic, that one was."

-

Anakin had sensed the truth of Obi-Wan's words just as clearly as he had sensed that Obi-Wan was the transparent blue thing. It was just that neither of these two things were something that he wanted to deal with, and if he had to choose one, it would definitely be the transparent Obi-Wan as opposed to the "twenty years in the future". An intangible Jedi could be quite useful in battle, but jumping ahead twenty years could only bode ill for his marriage, among other things.

"How can I be…? Am I dead or something?" Anakin's latest conjecture was rather frantic. That alarmed Obi-Wan. He'd had enough problems with the tricky question of his former apprentice's death/non death with others, let alone actually having to tell the person involved. Obi-Wan settled on a slightly easier answer.

"You didn't die coming here."

From the scowl on Anakin's face, that was not a good enough answer. "So why am I here? Where is here? And why are you _glowing?_"

"I'm dead, Anakin."

Obi-Wan rather regretted saying that.

"Not that that's why you're here- I don't know the answer to that one-"

"Who killed you?" The expression on Anakin's face suggested that he was plotting highly painful revenge. "Grievous? The Sith Lord?"

Why, why, _why _Anakin had to ask that…

"Let's discuss getting you home, young one."

"Young one?" repeated Anakin disbelievingly. "Obi-Wan, I'm no longer a child-"

"And I'm no longer a particularly young man, Ani."

_Ani._ It was so easy to just slip back into the old days with this living relic of them right in front of him. So easy to slip back into their little duels of words. He wondered, not for the first time, if that was why he'd intentionally antagonized Vader with his comments during their last fight. A very small part of him had always hoped that a little bit remaining of Anakin was what provoked the Sith into gloating that "now I am the master." Certainly it had been the sort of thing his apprentice would say after just a small argument, some petty griping over driving speeds…

"Um, Obi-Wan?" Anakin's voice softened slightly at the look on the transparent face. What had happened in the future? He was beginning to nurse a conviction that in fact he _was_ dead. "Are you all right?"

The Jedi was relieved to see his old Master shake his head slightly to clear it. "Don't worry. Now, what were you doing with that unfortunate speeder?"


	4. Chapter 4

When he'd first joined the Alliance, Luke had really hoped never to return to Tatooine

When he'd first joined the Alliance, Luke had really hoped never to return to Tatooine. After Bespin, he knew he'd have to if only to find Jabba the Hutt. This was just sooner than he'd expected. Way sooner.

And not for a reason he'd been expecting. _Another Jedi._ Wow. Maybe whoever it was could help him with his lightsaber. That had been the official reason he'd given to High Command, anyhow. You couldn't just go up and tell High Command, "I need to figure out if my father is in fact a Dark Lord of the Sith." But "I need a new lightsaber in order to effectively fight the Empire?" That was good. That would do.

R2D2 beeped a reminder as the X-Wing began to exit hyperspace.

"I know, Artoo, don't worry. We're coming around near Anchorhead- oh, _stang."_

It was far too mild an expletive, but it was the first one that came to mind. The _Executor._ In orbit around Tatooine. And not just in "somewhere in the system but I can avoid it" orbit. No, more in "I almost crashed into a Super Star Destroyer" orbit.

The Jedi's reflexes spun into action, and he dove the fighter away from the massive shadow of the destroyer. _C'mon c'mon c'mon…_

Even before the tractor beam caught his ship, he could tell it was too late.

-

Anakin _really, really _hated Tatooine. Every beam of light from the twin suns, every little grain of abrasive sand, every Hutt spawned slaver who lived there. And it had taken the Jedi very little time to decide that as bad as Tatooine of the past had been, Tatooine of the future was worse. Every bad memory was still there- along with twenty years worth of pain in the force.

That confused him. Certainly there was his own pain, and the echoes of slaughters and raids- but there were a few _spots._ Two, really. Somewhere near the edge of this particular area of nasty dunes that he and transparent-Obi-Wan were flying over in the repaired speeder was a bit of dull, cold pain that clamped onto his mind like a burr. And in the direction of Mos Eisley there was something dark. Anakin did not want to think about the fact that it was _familiar,_ that it almost seemed to overlap his mind.

But it did not escape his notice that when he'd asked Obi-Wan where to go, the Jedi had pointed in the exact opposite direction of the dark thing.

"What is it?" Anakin asked finally. They both knew what he was talking about.

Obi-Wan stared away from him. "Please don't ask me that, Anakin."

The force-ghost clamped his intangible hands around the landspeeder's safety railing. Vader was on Tatooine. And without a ship, he and Anakin had no way of getting off the planet, meaning that they had a more than decent chance of running into the Sith. Obi-Wan was almost sure that his former pupil was looking for them, even if he wasn't sure just who he was searching for.

Certainly, he would find them unless they kept on the move. But there wasn't going to be an explanation that would satisfy the younger Jedi as to why they wouldn't stop and wouldn't fight, and Obi-Wan knew it. He'd either have to provide the truth, or a distraction.

There weren't distractions.

"Anakin, stop the speeder."

-

It was not the best day of Javin's life. That honor still belonged to his engagement five months ago.

For now. The young commander had a sneaking suspicious that this one might beat it by the end of the day.

Normally prisoner capture was near guaranteed to _ruin _the man's day. He'd never confess it to anyone- if he had, he wouldn't have gotten this far in the Fleet- but blood made him want to throw up. He never actually had, yet, but there was always the chance that a promising career would be completely ruined by a squeamish temperament, and Javin was always a bit nervous about that risk.

But this X-Wing- by the markings on it, the Rebel ship appeared to belong to Number One of the Empire's Most Wanted, at least for practical purposes. There were a few above Skywalker on the actual list- at least Javin thought there must be- but on the _Executor_ the only search of any real importance was for the Rebel pilot.

No, thought Javin, on the last Best Day of His Life, he'd had a marriage in his future. Now he had not only a marriage, but the chance to be a galaxy wide hero and be set for life. After all, _he _was the commanding officer of the group that had spotted Skywalker's ship and ordered the tractor.

As he ordered his men into the high-security hangar, Javin was already planning how to spend the rest of his famous life of luxury.

That was when his men discovered that the X-Wing was empty.

The glorious potential life in front of Javin suddenly seemed considerably shorter.

-

One of the few advantages the Alliance had, thought Luke, was that the Empire had only two real policies on mistakes. For errors made by people, the policy tended towards instant death, at least from what he'd heard. But for procedure errors- there, thought Luke almost smugly, it was more along the lines of "if it's only broken enough that it allowed a high security prisoner and her rescuers to escape, it's no one's responsibility to fix it."

His impression had been obtained through the fact that only two troopers had been sent to get him out of his X-Wing, and in all fairness to the Empire, it may not have been completely accurate.

But it certainly had been accurate enough to allow the Jedi to mind trick the guards and flee before the larger group arrived. Artoo had gotten him through a security door, and now he and the droid were hidden in what Luke supposed was a supply closet. He'd rather lost track of all the doors and corridors they'd snuck through, but the important thing was that they were safe.

Sort of. Relatively.

As safe as Luke was going to get aboard a Super Star Destroyer packed to the gills with Imperials.

-

Anakin had lost most of his patience with Blue-Transparent-Obi-Wan quite a while ago. As far as the Jedi was concerned, there were few things possibly more annoying than stopping a perfectly good landspeeder to sit around in the middle of this blasted desert and Tell Me Something Important, and then decide that maybe he wasn't going to say anything after all.

It was unfair. It was seriously unfair.

And of all things to be doing, Obi-Wan appeared to be in the process of trying to start a fire. Anakin wasn't going to dwell on how in the world the intangible Jedi hoped to proceed with this- the intention was clear.

He was _not _going to camp out in the middle of this wasteland. It was pointless, and worse, it was _cowardly._ The Hero With No Fear did _not _run from Dark Things, even twenty years or so into the future. He was beginning to seriously wonder _what _had happened to his friend to turn a man who'd faced down Sith Lords so spineless.

Obi-Wan turned around towards Anakin. "Could you possibly pass me-"

"Enough!" It was the final straw. Anakin stormed over, stomped the slightly scorched place in the sand in front of his former master, and glared. "_What _is wrong with you? What do you need to tell me?"

"Don't ask me that, Anakin." Obi-Wan turned away.

"You said that before! I _am_ asking you! When did I die?"

"What?"

"You won't tell me something. It's that I died, isn't it? Do you think I'm just going to-"

"You aren't dead, Anakin," said Obi-Wan, softly. "Not… the way you mean."

"Then _what is wrong with you? __**Tell me, Obi-Wan."**_ Anakin's eyes were dangerous, and for a second his face twisted into what Obi-Wan had fought on Mustafar.

"Anakin…" Obi-Wan closed his eyes and turned away. For a second rage contorted Anakin's face, but then his former Master spoke again, his voice heavy with the pain from twenty years of brooding on betrayal. "The darkness we're running from- is you."

"What?!" Anakin's voice came out almost as a squeak. _That's not true… That's impossible!_

Obi-Wan turned to the younger man in despair, hearing his thoughts. "I thought it was. I never believed you could turn. _She_ never believed you could turn. Your son-"

"My _what?_"

"Your-" That was when Obi-Wan cut off suddenly. Dunked into that Hoth swimming pool again. Something- something shockingly nearby- was wrong with Luke. "Stay here."

"Obi-Wan!"

No. That was completely and utterly the _last straw._ Obi-Wan was _not _allowed to just run off and hide from questions. _Why are you lying to me, Obi-Wan? _

For a moment an anger-filled vision filled Anakin's mind, a solid version of the Force ghost, chopped in half with a single swing. _And serve him right-_

What was he _thinking? _

Anakin fell to his knees.

The darkness. That was what he was angry at, not Obi-Wan. The darkness that had consumed his future self, and that was trying to consume his present one.

There was one thing to do.

The Jedi set off to find the darkness, and kill it.

It may not have been the wisest of plans.


	5. Chapter 5

**Thanks once again to everyone who's reviewed. It feels really nice to know people are enjoying my story.**

**I don't own Star Wars.**

**Lou.**

* * *

If Luke could ignore the fact that it was located on the Imperial flagship (which he could not), it was a fairly nice closet. The same climate-controlled sterility of the rest of the Star Destroyer, with black metal walls and a few deactivated cleaning droids stacked neatly in one corner. It wasn't even pitch dark in there- an automatic glow had appeared on a ceiling panel the moment he'd burst in and slammed the door.

Still, the only feature that he could really call redeeming- and that was stretching it- was the false panel he'd discovered in one wall, which appeared to lead into a tunnel.

Admittedly, Going Into Dark-Side Steeped Secret Tunnels Onboard The _Executor_ was not a procedure liable to be green lighted by Alliance command, but Luke felt it would be better than waiting around for the crew of the vessel to wisen up.

"C'mon, Artoo," he whispered, creeping into the passageway. The droid beeped softly, and then rolled after him.

"_Luke!"_

The disembodied voice startled him perhaps more than it should have.

-

Obi-Wan had been relieved to find Luke unharmed, though it was rather tempered by the young Jedi's frantic mental state. It wasn't just panic at being aboard Vader's ship, but a shadow of mistrust, betrayal and confusion.

Being one with the Force was so annoying. Obi-Wan did not _need_ the details of everyone's emotions flung at him.

"Ben! How do I get out of here?"

It was the first easy question Obi-Wan had been asked all day, and he was rather insanely grateful for it.

"Just follow me." Finally. After a day of Anakin-from-the-past, fleeing from Vader, and attempting to understand Yoda, here was someone who he could deal with easily. Someone who trusted him implicitly, little as he may have deserved it, who had, if not normal goals, moderately rational ways of reaching them. A problem that he could solve simply, with a defined destination…

"Why didn't you tell me?"

_Kriff._

"I'm so sorry, Luke." The statement was as inadequate as Obi-Wan felt at that moment.

"Then it is true. Darth Vader… _is_ my father."

Obi-Wan turned around.

"You lied to me. He _wasn't _betrayed, he _wasn't _murdered-"

The force-ghost stopped, staring at the boy's face. "I failed him. He was lured to the Dark Side, and Anakin Skywalker ceased to exist. Could I burden you with that, Luke? Hand you failure before you began?"

Luke was silent, refusing to meet Obi-Wan's eyes. The old Jedi sighed. "I _am _truly sorry, Luke. And I'm sorry now, too. There are things I can't tell you now that you would want to know. They simply…" Obi-Wan paused. "They affect too many others, and you do not need the knowledge."

Their eyes finally met, blue on bluish-transparent-gray, and Luke nodded slowly. "I understand, Ben."

"Thank you, young Luke," said Obi-Wan in his best ethereal voice. "And now, let us continue on our journey."

Two smiles, and they were once again off, now in companionable silence.

-

Obi-Wan saw Luke to the hangar, and after two mind tricks on the hapless guards, the rebel X-wing set off on its journey to the planet below.

Obi-Wan could probably be forgiven for neglecting to consider the problems inherent in the young Jedi's destination. Because the force-ghost had significantly larger problems. The Force, in what had to be a record, had been Disturbed _again_, and the source of the problem was evident.

Obi-Wan muttered furiously to himself. _A simple order. Stay where you are, Anakin. Quite simple. How idiotic of me to even consider that he would actually listen._

And as he shimmered into view in a particularly desolate area of dunes next to a decidedly unattractive cliff-side palace, it appeared that once again he was going to have to bail the poster boy of the Jedi Order out of some ridiculous mess.

Obi-Wan floated down next to where his former apprentice was blocking blaster bolts with his lightsaber. They were directly inside the entrance hallway of- oh, stang. It was Jabba the Hutt's palace.

"Oh, hello, Obi-Wan." The comment was punctuated with a slight smirk from Anakin. "Nice timing."

"What did you do this time?" The force-ghost's powers were rather limited in his incorporeal state, but- it may have been a side-effect of whatever had brought Anakin through time, it may have been inferior weaponry on the part of the horde the Jedi were now fighting- Obi-Wan found that he could divert bolts with his hand.

"It was a slave market!" The younger Jedi's voice was filled with righteous anger, and Obi-Wan couldn't really blame him. If it hadn't meant death for him- and presumably for the Lars', Luke, and most of the surrounding area- there had been a few times during his exile when Obi-Wan had wanted nothing more than to shut down much of the local "business" at lightsaber point.

"And it got you all the way to the Hutt's palace _how?_"

"They tried to arrest me when I attacked them. Brought in some- _hi-yah!-_ reinforcements, and, well, here we are."

He'd _missed_ this. How in the world he'd _missed _their missions gone wrong… They were backing down the entranceway now, towards the heart of the palace. Obi-Wan was very, very sure this was an incredibly bad idea, tactics wise.

"They could use some better taste in decorations," muttered Anakin, slicing a particularly ugly mobile behind them to the floor.

"Anakin, the décor of the throne room is not so much of our concern as is the fact that we are surrounded while in it." The Hutt wasn't home, and much of the chamber was deserted before the mob chasing them swarmed in. That was perhaps the one thing in their favor that Obi-Wan could see in the circumstances.

"Come on, Obi-Wan. You haven't gotten to do something like this in twenty years, remember?"

He certainly could not remember ever having told Anakin that, as painfully true as the statement was. He remembered how he'd decided he needed either the truth or a distraction. Well, he'd told the truth- or some of it- and the distraction had provided itself. Hopefully he could avoid more difficult questions once this was over.

The force-ghost tried an experiment, and discovered that, yes, he could slam beings against the walls with the Force.

Anakin of course mimicked him, sending a few Gammoreans several feet further away than his erstwhile teacher had. Over the next few seconds, the battle deteriorated into a force-ghost and the Chosen One competing to see who could slam lowlifes the furthest.

"Bet I can hit the ugly statue."

"Anakin-"

"Yes! Dead center- hey, Obi-Wan!"

A new wave of palace dwellers stormed in from the doorway behind the duo, and Obi-Wan found himself far too preoccupied to glance at whatever the time traveler was doing. "Anakin, let's go! There are more of them coming!"

"Just a second!"

"Anakin!"

"I've almost got it!"

There was a dull clanging _thunk _from behind Obi-Wan, who turned around momentarily to see his former apprentice- "Anakin! Stop vandalizing the palace and _follow me."_

"I'm not vandalizing, Obi-Wan!"

The force-ghost sighed. "I'm sorry. Stop _looting,_ then! I can't keep holding them off!"

"Yes! I've almost- _Sith._" A near-miss blast had knocked the younger Jedi's hands against one of the buttons on the control panel he was messing with. "_Not good…"_

"Anakin! You have ten seconds!" _How long has it been since I've said _that_, I wonder?_

"And- yes!"

Obi-Wan had turned away from Anakin to slam them a path out through the hall. Anakin was slower than usual, as if he was lugging something heavy, but the force-ghost was too focused on getting to their speeder and getting it started- as well as getting the rest of the mob out of the way- to even reach out in the Force to see what was going on. As Anakin leapt onto the speeder, the two of them set off.

"Is there a home base? The controls on the wall messed up, and I think this guy needs help."

Only then did Obi-Wan turn around.

"_Anakin!"_

-

Luke hadn't found it to be overly difficult to sneak into Mos Eisley. He was far from familiar with the place- he'd been a farmboy, not a criminal- but with the Force's guidance, he managed to avoid the storm troopers that seemed to be posted at every corner.

Still, he couldn't shake off his feeling of unease. There was something too quiet about the town, the miscreants who inhabited it sneaking from shadow to shadow much in the way he was doing, everyone's eyes on the ground.

He wasn't sure exactly where he was going.

The Force seemed to be leading him somewhere, as if he was plodding along a well-traveled path instead of forging his way through the thin crowds. The path led on for quite a while along the main street, but finally it led Luke into a turn. The street here was almost completely deserted, even by storm troopers.

This would've alarmed Luke if it wasn't for the fact that the rest of the scene distracted him. As he entered the parts store, he could see several items scattered around on the floor, sliced cleanly with burnt edges.

_A lightsaber did this! _Finally, a clue on his quest. Glancing up from the bits of metal on the floor as if uninterested, Luke met the eyes of a nervous-looking Twi'lek storekeeper.

"What happened?" inquired the Jedi, his voice offhand.

The Twi'lek shrugged. "Nothing- nothing much." His voice was shaking and high-pitched with evident fear.

This, too, would've alarmed Luke had not other things distracted him. Namely, that he could sense the street behind him filling up with Imperial troops.


	6. Chapter 6

**Thanks so much again to everyone who's reviewed, and everyone who's read****! You guys are fantastic!**

**Lou**

* * *

Vader felt he had planned the trap rather well, all things considered.

His arrival on the accursed planet had been incredibly unpleasant, unhelped by the fact that a few storm troopers were the only ones with any clue as to what had been going on, and when he had demanded to speak to them, the commanding officers had been most idiotically unhelpful.

"We didn't suppose that you'd want to speak to _them, _milord-"

It surprised him very little that these particular shining examples of Imperial might had had the misfortune to be assigned to an outer rim planet only nominally under the Empire's control. It would have been exceedingly foolish and dangerous to place them anywhere of importance. After a few examples of why backwater officers did _not _attempt to disagree with the plans of the Emperor's second-in-command, Vader had finally gotten an interview with the troopers, who were the first two people at the base to prove in any way helpful.

"So this is where the Jedi was?"

The owner of the small store, a purple Twi'lek, had proven to be the third helpful being on the planet after only a small amount of persuasion.

"Brownish hair, blue eyes, claimed his name was Anakin Skywalker. I didn't believe him, thought he was another one of those local boys- they're always giving those obnoxious fake names, yah know, celebrities, puns, whatnot-"

One of the troopers adjusting the blaster pressed to the Twi'lek's head rapidly brought him back on topic.

"Anyhow, he got mad at me, drew his lightsaber- I guess that's what it was, burning blue thing- waved it in my face, and was all 'I'm Skywalker', but that's when these fine boys here-" the storeowner paused to smile nervously but ingratiatingly at the storm trooper next to him- "blasted in, and there was this big brouhaha, yah know, blastin' everywhere, messin' up my store, sir, and just gen'rally-"

"Enough." Vader had heard enough to be fairly sure that the Jedi in the store had _not _been his son, which only served to complicate matters. In fact, it in all probability would've meant the end of the mission (and of the lives of anyone who crossed the Sith during the next few days) had one of the officers from the base not burst into the store at that moment, stopping with the perfect posture of someone fresh enough from the Academy to still believe he had a future even here.

"Sir!" rang out the officer, his voice clear and precise but his light brown eyes nervous.

"What?" demanded Vader. At the moment he could really not think of anything important enough to interrupt his sulking, unless of course the mysterious Jedi he would now have to waste yet more time chasing had caused some havoc elsewhere.

"A report from the _Executor,_ milord, urgent. They captured an X-wing confirmed to belong to Luke Skywalker-"

Vader's posture shifted slightly, and the recent graduate officer gulped.

"They report the capture of this X-wing, but unfortunately both prisoner and ship escaped some time later- they are not in fact able to confirm with certainty that the prisoner was ever aboard."

Even longing for prestige as much as he did, the young officer for the first time did not envy those aboard the flagship as Darth Vader stormed out of the shop.

It had been a setback for only a few minutes, as now that he was paying attention Vader could clearly sense his son approaching the planet.

"Very well," he had intoned menacingly to no one in particular.

No, he felt he had planned the trap quite well, leaving the Twi'lek in the store and the lightsaber-scored debris on the ground where it had been. His son was clearly headed for wherever the mysterious imposter had been, and as the trail in the Force had led to this parts shop, Luke would arrive there as well.

-

Obi-Wan had had many days _worse_ than this, to the point that it was no laughing matter. He had even had days slightly more complicated.

What was he supposed to say?

"Congratulations, Anakin. You've rescued a man who your future self got into this mess."

"Congratulations, Anakin, you may have single-handedly destroyed the space-time continuum."

"Congratulations, Anakin, you've just severely angered the criminal element of this Force-forsaken hive of scum and villainy."

Or, well…

"Congratulations, Anakin, you just did something heroic and I still can't believe this is happening. Job well done."

Finally he decided on something simple.

"Yes, we've got a home base." His hut was probably still there. It might be sand-filled by this point, but it was probably still there. It had only been three years or so.

"Good," said Anakin, glancing at the unconscious body beside him. "I have some questions."

Obi-Wan lowered his head. "You can ask now, if you want."

Anakin gave Obi-Wan's transparent face a careful glance. "Who-"

-did I become?

-did you mean by son?

-killed you?

He, too, settled on something easier.

"Who is that guy, do you know?"

Obi-Wan gave the carbon-free but unconscious Han Solo another incredulous stare. "A… pilot. Flew me out of Mos Eisley a few years ago."

"Why were you in Mos Eisley?"

"Well…" Obi-Wan sighted his former home over a ridge of dunes. "Tell you what, Anakin, let's get ourselves settled in and I'll tell you that story."

Anakin had a sneaking suspicion Obi-Wan had other reasons for delaying, but at least they could stop moving for a while. The hut was the typical miserable Tatooine dwelling place, half-buried by some sandstorm or other but apparently in decent condition otherwise. He wondered how Obi-Wan had found- had apparently knew about and been looking for- this hut in the middle of nowhere.

As they entered the house, Anakin was thankful to see that it was less sand-covered inside, presumably somewhat protected by the walls and heavy door. He'd slept in piles of sand more times than he could count, and hated it.

Looking around the hut in mild surprise- it had apparently been deserted for a while, but it showed every sign of having been someone's home for years- the time traveler laid the pilot on a rug and stared at him for a few seconds.

"He should've woken up by now."

Obi-Wan sighed. "He's alive. More than you can usually expect in these-"

"Confound it! If that stupid blast hadn't hit me I'd have pressed the right buttons, and maybe I'd be able to do _something _right today and-"

"Anakin! Calm down!"

Obi-Wan was rather proud of how Anakin had handled the stress of ending up twenty years into the miserable future up to this point. But enough was enough, and even prodigies required breaks.

"Anakin, if you don't rest _you'll _be unconscious. Now, sit down."

"But- oh, fine."

Anakin sat on a low chair and scowled at him. Obi-Wan sighed. It was amazing how things that would've driven his younger self into a tirade merely filled him with a sense of nostalgia now.

Perhaps all Jedi Masters should've been required to spend nineteen years in hiding. It would certainly have taught them not to sweat the small stuff.

"Now," said Obi-Wan calmly, "you had more questions?"

Anakin looked down. He didn't want to know. He didn't want to know how he'd turned into the dark thing, how Obi-Wan had died… What had happened to Padmé.

"Start at the beginning."

-

Luke glanced quickly to the wall behind the storeowner. No, the back door was blocked. The windows were barred to be theft proof. And unlike whoever had destroyed the metal pieces on the floor, Luke had no lightsaber.

Drawing his blaster, he began shooting madly at the ranks of storm troopers. But it was useless. Even though they didn't seem to be shooting, there were too many of them, and now they had begun to advance through the store's doorway.

"Surrender, rebel," barked a voice from the lead helmet.

Luke dignified that only with a response from his blaster, a futile effort but an effort nonetheless.

The troopers still didn't shoot. That was a bad sign. They wanted him alive and unharmed, clearly, but he'd known about that.

No, the very bad sign was that they weren't even bothering to stun him. That could only mean that even if he did manage to escape, they knew he wouldn't get very far.

Slowing down his frantic shooting slightly, Luke scanned the surrounding area with the Force, and his worse fears were confirmed. Vader was out there. This was bad. This was really, incredibly bad.

_Ben? _inquired Luke desperately into the Force. There was no response from his departed teacher.

There was only one thing he could think of to do under the circumstances, and Luke let his instincts take over, body slamming himself through the first row of storm troopers.

He even actually made it several yards past them before they finally began to fire stun bolts, and, his heart pounding madly, several yards further than that before one finally hit him.


	7. Chapter 7

**This chapter's a little shorter than usual, but that's because I couldn't really figure out where to break it and the next one up but where I did. So, yes, tomorrow's is longer. **

**Thanks as always to the awesome reviewers!**

**Lou.**

* * *

Han awakened only slowly. He couldn't see, but he wasn't aware of that yet, because he couldn't open his eyes. Couldn't move at all.

He could only really tell he was actually awake now because there were voices.

"I… I killed them all?"

"Anakin…" An older voice than the first.

"Don't comfort me, Obi-Wan."

A sigh. "You went to Mustafar- a volcano planet. She followed you, and I snuck along on her ship. She tried to turn you back, and you grew angry. As I came out of the ship, you believed she had betrayed you-"

"And I killed her." The words were sobbed.

"You choked her. You did not murder her. She… she died later, Anakin, giving birth to your children."

There was just sobbing now. "Go on, Obi-Wan," the younger voice choked out.

"Anakin, this wasn't _you._"

Well, that made no sense.

"But it was."

"You can change this."

The voices both paused. Han tried again to open his eyes, but couldn't.

Another sigh, and the older voice continued. "We dueled. I fought my way to higher ground- and you attacked me anyway. I… I chopped off it's legs and arm, and I left it to die. I thought it did."

"You thought _I _did."

"Anakin…"

"I deserved it."

This was a seriously depressing conversation, and the smuggler was beginning to tire of it.

"_Ugh…"_

"Obi-Wan… The pilot-guy's awake."

-

It had, thought Obi-Wan, been a distraction at exactly the right time. Even if Anakin claimed that he was capable of continuing to listen, the force-ghost was _not _sure that he himself was capable of continuing to tell the story.

All too soon, Anakin reemerged from the hut's second room.

"The Captain's alright?" inquired Obi-Wan.

"Asleep again."

Both of them stared at the ground.

Finally, Anakin spoke up. "I wasn't aware Jango Fett had _had_ a wife, let alone that her morals were so lax."

"What?"

"I take it you didn't understand the language he was swearing in?"

"I wasn't listening, Anakin." _I had slightly more important things to think about._

"You missed some very entertaining curses, Obi-Wan."

"I take it that was all he said?" From his brief interactions with the smuggler, this did not surprise Obi-Wan in the least.

"The only other intelligible thing was 'I love you, too' or something. Bunch of random names. He wanted to know where someone called Leia was, told him I didn't know. That was when the whole, um, commentary on the Fett family began."

"Boba," said Obi-Wan absently. "Became a bounty hunter." _Lovely. More things to tell Anakin, apparently. You're a Sith Lord. Your son hates you. And, apparently, your daughter is dating a smuggler._

Anakin stared at him. "And I think he could hear you."

"What? Anakin, that makes no sense. He's definitely not force-sensitive." The force-ghost permitted himself a light laugh.

"No," agreed Anakin. "I think… Maybe the laws of the universe aren't working right. I mean, I came through time, you can all of a sudden deflect blaster bolts, now what's-his-face, statue-guy, he can hear you… It doesn't make any sense."

"Maybe it's for a reason," suggested Obi-Wan.

"I _am_ the Chosen One," said Anakin with a hint of his old mocking arrogance.

"Anakin, that does not mean that you can bend the laws of the universe."

There was another silence, and they stared at the ground.

"What happened afterwards?" said the younger Jedi quietly.

-

"…And then…" Obi-Wan stopped.

Anakin was annoyed by this point. This was hard enough, _hearing _this, what he'd become, the things he'd let happen. Pauses were unacceptable. They had stopped the story twice in the past half-hour or so- Anakin had triumphantly discovered a few cans of ground Bantha that seemed to have somehow survived in an edible form since Obi-Wan had left, and rapidly dug in- and that was enough.

And this part- he had to know what happened next. He was amazed at how the story had developed an almost unreal quality. It was too far removed from who and what he was. Even as he dreaded what his future self would have done next, he relished the sidetracks- _his son said his first word!_- and the stories of heroes who had stood against him.

Now Obi-Wan was just going to be quiet? He had to know what happened for _both _reasons, for morbidity and hope.

"Obi-Wan."

"We stopped off in a cantina. Miserable place. That's where we met Captain Solo- we hired his ship to take us to Alderaan."

Alderaan was _gone. _An entire planet, _gone, _because of people- things- he'd chosen to serve.

"And of course we ran dead into the Death Star."

A desperately wry smile spread across Obi-Wan's face, and Anakin glared at it.

"So it was us- a decrepit old Jedi, a farmboy, two droids, a smuggler, and a Wookiee- Chewbacca, the co-pilot- trapped on the worst ship I've ever flown on, on a planet-sized battle-station."

This. This was one of the parts of the story that Anakin was sure he would like. Adventure, heroism. His son and the closest thing he had to a father would run in, rescue his daughter, and fly off into the sunset heroically. Thwarting his future self, of course, but Anakin could almost separate himself from that. _It's not me yet._

For perhaps the first time, a thought hit him. _Maybe it doesn't have to be…_

Obi-Wan was still talking. Furious at himself for being distracted, Anakin once again focused his attention on the force-ghost's words.

"I turned off the tractor beam fairly easily, and started to head back to Luke. Of course, along the way he'd not only rescued his sister but gotten trapped in and then out of a trash compactor onboard the ship."

_Takes after me, _thought Anakin proudly.

"On the way back…" The old Jedi's voice broke suddenly.

"On the way back," repeated Anakin. "Are you all right?"

Obi-Wan just shook his transparent head. "I ran into Vader."

This was rapidly becoming less fun of a story.

"We dueled."

"How many limbs did I lose this time?"

Obi-Wan's expression was horrified, and Anakin felt a pang of remorse.

"Joke, Obi-Wan. C'mon."

"Anakin… You won the duel. You killed me."

-

Forgiveness was not something that one hoped for aboard the _Executor. _A slightly less painful death, perhaps. An opportunity to contact one's family if Vader happened to be off board when the mistake was made.

But forgiveness?

The entire group of men who'd failed to apprehend Skywalker were in near-shock.

"I'm _breathing," _repeated the Commander for the third time.

"Shut up," muttered the second-in-command. The insolence was near-unheard of- but so was surviving letting a prisoner escape, let alone _Skywalker._

No, that wasn't true. After going through a number of High Command men, Lord Vader had for some reason allowed Admiral Piett to live the last time the flagship had failed to capture the rebel.

Of course, that time the Sith had been in such a fearsome rage that the unspoken consensus on the incident was that death wasn't considered easy enough. For several weeks, everyone had expected multiple unfortunate things to befall the Admiral, but nothing ever had, unless one counted the stubbed toe.

Maybe Skywalker was just special.

It could, of course, have something to do with the fact that he had been captured immediately afterwards that saved them, but that seemed unlikely. Hoth had been, if not a rousing success, a victory, but that had not saved Ozzel.

Still, the pondering of the "why" of life did not change a simple fact.

The men were alive.

_Alive._

This _was_, in afterthought, the best day of Commander Javin's life.

-

Sitting in what was a nice jail cell- even nicer than the closet- but still decidedly a jail cell, Luke Skywalker woke up.

-

"…If it makes you feel better, I let you win, and- _argh_!"

Multiple Hoth swimming pools seemed to have dumped themselves on Obi-Wan's head.


	8. Chapter 8

**A note to answer some questions: the "Hoth swimming pool" has been imagery I've been using through the fic to sort of describe how Obi-Wan, being part of the Force, feels disturbances. I meant that to be clearer than it was... **

**Thanks to everybody!**

**Lou.**

* * *

"Obi-Wan?" _Let me win, indeed. _Even if he was utterly horrified at the prospect that his future self had killed the man, Anakin was still confident that he had won fair and square in the duel.

"Your son." Obi-Wan's transparent face was deeply, deeply alarmed.

"Luke?" He still could not get over the fact that he had a son. With a _name. _He liked the name. He wondered if he'd chosen it, or if Padmé had.

Twins. He had two kids.

"Anakin, get that ridiculous grin off of your face. We need to get to your ship- you do have a ship, right?- now."

Anakin flushed. "About that, Obi-Wan. It's sort of a little bit broken… I sort of, um, stole the parts to fix it, but it'll take time. Besides, what's wrong?"

"Anakin! You. Found. Your. Son."

That stopped the young Jedi in his tracks. "Let's go."

"You! Solo!" Anakin yelled at the sleeping pilot in the far room. "Come on!"

A muffled sound of cursing.

"Anakin, the man's practically unconscious, we should probably leave him here."

"He knows Luke," said Anakin as if this should be obvious.

"So do _I._"

"I don't care. I'm not leaving anyone on this planet if I can help it."

Anakin may not have caught the double meaning behind his words, but Obi-Wan did, and it scared him.

"I just hope your ship can _hold _four people."

-

It could barely hold three. Anakin, thankfully, had decided against flying his one-person fighter on a multiday mission, but while the one he'd flown did feature a small area behind the pilot's seat to walk around in, it was still cramped enough to throw in Obi-Wan's face every single reason he'd always hated flying.

He couldn't complain, of course. He was a _force-ghost. _He kept almost deciding to dematerialize or go on ahead, but then he'd catch a glimpse of Anakin's rather haunted face and decide against it.

Still. Flying with Anakin. One of the few things he'd never really been able to admit that he missed. At least in hyperspace, there were no opportunities for death-defying barrel rolls or anything of the sort, but it was still nerve-racking.

Sighing, Obi-Wan relaxed into the trance-like state that was the closest he could get to sleep.

"I'm not going to kill him, am I?"

"What?" Obi-Wan muttered groggily.

"He's not already dead, is he?"

"Anakin, Luke is fine for now. He's strong. He didn't turn at Bespin."

"And I'm not strong…"

_When, Obi-Wan Kenobi, did you develop this gift for saying exactly the wrong thing?_

"Wait, Luke?" It appeared Captain Solo was awake once more. "Hey, I can see again-"

For a second, the three occupants of the ship stared at each other in mild alarm.

Han spoke first. "Who… are you guys?"

"Anakin… um… Anakin… Naberrie."

Obi-Wan buried his face in his hands. "I'm the spirit of mad old Obi-Wan Kenobi. He's Anakin Skywalker, Luke's father, from twenty years in the past."

The more-than-mildly-alarmed expressions on Han and Anakin's faces as they stared at Obi-Wan were near-identical.

He sighed. "Now, if you two will excuse me, you woke me up from meditation."

"Obi-Wan, you can admit that you're sleeping, I don't-"

Han stared at the now empty area of floor. "Did he just vanish?"

"_Obi-Wan!"_ Anakin glared around the ship.

"_Try to contact the Rebellion,"_ came a dim voice. "_I'm meditating."_

"Right." Anakin continued to glare blaster bolts at the empty air. "Do you know any Rebellion codes?"

"_Excuse me?"_

Anakin raised an eyebrow. "Do you? Because we need to-"

"And what in the universe makes you thing I'm going to give two disappearing nutjobs top-secret information? Just turn me in already."

"Turn you in?"

"To Jabba. What, you don't even know why Boba was carrying around a statue?"

"We _rescued _you from the Hutt. Filthy son-of-a-Bantha that he is… Now tell me the codes already."

"No."

"You owe us your kriffing life. Tell me the codes."

"No."

Anakin waved a few fingers in the air. "You will tell me the Rebellion contact codes."

"No."

_Sith! I hate when mind tricks don't work._

"You. Will. Tell. Me. The-"

A burst of static cracked over the ship's communicator.

-

Wes Janson, Rogue Squadron pilot extraordinaire, had been annoyed enough to be banished to Communications for a day. He hadn't even been the one behind that photo of Mothma, and quite honestly enough was enough- he couldn't even figure this whole frequencies and secret codes of blah-blah-blah thing out.

"Hey, this communicator-thingy's not responding!"

A tech leaned over. "You're on the wrong frequency." _Pilots._

"It's still not-"

The tech sighed condescendingly. "They've got an outdated receiver. Hey, Brix, come see this!"

A female Rodian sidled over. "Whoa." She stared at the signal number in some geeky, communications version of awe. "Clone Wars at least, wouldn't yah say, Dan?"

"Definitely."

Janson stared at them both in mild incomprehension.

The Rodian sighed. "Here, numbskull, try this one." She pushed a few buttons on Janson's console.

"There yah go. Now, do you know what tah say, or should I keep doin' your job?"

The pilot glared at her. He cleared his throat.

-

"Stang!" yelled Anakin. "We're out of hyperspace! What gives here?"

"That's impossible," muttered Captain Solo.

"Obi-Wan!"

-

"_Obi-Wan!"_

Janson cleared his throat again as voices began to come out of the speaker. Brix and Dan stared at him, still unimpressed.

"Attention, unidentified ship. You have entered the Rebellion fleet. State your business."

-

Han lunged for the communicator, knocking the stunned Jedi out of the way. "I'm trapped on a ship with some insane pretty-boy, that's the stating of business. Now get me High Command."

A strange yelling noise came from the receiver. Anakin extricated himself from the wiring he'd fallen into and moved towards the communicator again.

"Hello, Rebel Fleet, do you read me, this is-"

Now there was only the sound of giggling. A small hologram appeared on the top of the receiver, a short Rodian woman. "What do you mean, keep them busy, pilot-head?"

She apparently received some sort of answer, because she turned her large black eyes towards the two men now arm-wrestling over the communicator.

"You are now on hold with Rebel Operations. Please listen to the following lovely music. Oy! Dan! You got that- oh, never mind." The Rodian collapsed into giggles. "So, where'd yah come from?"

Anakin had only cheated slightly to win the arm wrestling battle over the communications console, and thus he was the image that immediately appeared on Brix's desk.

"Coruscant. And we're sort of in a hurry."

The Rodian gave him an odd look, then shrugged. "Congrats getting out, then. So, spill it, where'd you get the receiver? Clone Wars _Jedi Issue_, in case yah didn't know, hopelessly out of date but a classic."

Anakin smiled. "It's custom." It was, mostly. He'd made multiple modifications to it over the year or so he'd had it. The one in his one-person starfighter was even cooler.

"Impressive," purred the Rodian.

Anakin was about to respond with "I'm married" before he was elbowed out of the way. "Hey!"

"Look, 'Rebel Operations', this is Han Solo, and I want to speak with-"

"What- Captain Solo! If I may be the first to commend you on-"

Anakin elbowed the smuggler. "Let me talk to them."

"No. Now, listen up, I want to speak with- _you little son of a-"_

"Sorry!" yelled Anakin. "I can fix it."

The hologram screen was now filled with static.

"Hello? Hello?"

Anakin retoggled the switch his elbow had landed on. "Sorry. Now, if you don't mind-"

"I'd like to speak with Leia."

Anakin had many possible responses to that. He was about to go with "If you elbow me again I'll disembowel you slowly" when something clicked in his head.

"Leia _Organa_?"

The look the smuggler treated him to was almost Obi-Wan-esque in its irritated condescension. "Yep. If you don't mind my asking, what's it to you?"

Anakin stammered for a few seconds. "_Your children," Obi-Wan had said. " Twins. Luke and Leia." "He still won't say much. Just 'I love you too, Leia, or something."_

The Jedi's face turned a very angry color. "Oh, no, smuggler! **You are NOT dating my daughter**_**!**_**"**

The highly alarmed looks given to him by both the aforementioned smuggler and the communications hologram could not bode well.

-

Han had been fond of complaining to anyone who would listen that Luke's droid, C-3PO, had to be the most irritating protocol droid in existence. Janson had frequently been one of those who would listen, but he had always rather disagreed.

No, the protocol droid currently guarding the High Council meeting was much, much worse than Threepio. Janson hadn't really interacted with Luke's droid much beyond that one reprogramming incident, but Threepio really seemed to have an earnest desire to Help People.

The pilot had always assumed that was the _point_ of protocol droids, really. Whoever had programmed the one in guarding the door didn't appear to have known that. Either that or they'd had a really, really twisted sense of humor.

"For the final time-"

Sith. Even the _voice _grated on his poor ears.

"-sir-"

Pronounced with the utmost scorn that could be managed with an inflectionless voice.

"- Her Highness is not available."

"And for the final time, you bucket of bolts, _she needs to know this."_

"Do you have A-level clearance?"

He wasn't even sure what that was. It was certainly not a usual Alliance term, and Janson in fact had a sneaking suspicion that the droid had just made it up. Could protocol droids do that?

"Let. Me. In."

"I am detecting undue hostility in your voice tone, sir. This could represent a security breach."

"ARGH!"

"If you do not vacate the premises immediately, I am required to contact security personnel to report the issue."

That was when the pilot snapped. It probably meant being transferred from his day of Communications punishment to a month of Toxic Waste Duty punishment, but he couldn't take this anymore.

"Pilot Jansen! What are you doing to that droid?"

Oh. It appeared High Council had emerged. Janson hastily let go of the droid's head and saluted. "Ma'am!"

Mon Mothma did not appear to be impressed, but just then the pilot spotted Leia.

"Your Highness! You're needed in Communications. An emergency!"

"An emergency?" inquired Admiral Ackbar. "A droid revolt, perhaps?"

Several members of the Council glanced with amusement at the droid Janson had been fighting.

"No, sir."

Leia gave the council and then Janson an appraising look. He stared at her hopefully. _Please don't make me ruin the surprise._

"If you'll excuse me, Mon, I'll head down with Pilot Janson."

Mon Mothma inclined her head, and Leia followed Janson to the lift. As the door shut, she turned to him. "You're incredibly bad at kitling-eyes."

"Sorry, Your Highness."

"So, what is the emergency?" Her voice reassumed its regal tone.

"It's a surprise, ma'am."

-

Luke had been unable to think of an escape plan. The door was sealed to the point that he could barely make out where in the wall it was, there weren't any air vents (this concerned him considerably) and while there was furniture- he was fairly sure, in fact, that there was not supposed to be this much furniture in an Imperial cell- it was all attached securely to the floor.

He began to pace.

After pacing around his cell twelve times, he was finally able to discover that there were in fact two doors, one of which was openable and which led to a refresher.

After pacing around his cell fifty-nine times, a small slit in the first door slid open, and a tray of food slid in and floated on repulsor lifts to the floor.

The Jedi sniffed the meat on the tray. It smelled better than anything he'd eaten in ages, but he didn't touch it.

He stared at the plate again. There was a _garnish _underneath the steak.

"Nice," he said out loud. "Maybe I can eat this food using this nice silverware _with the mechanical hand that replaced the one you cut off._"

He highly doubted his father was listening. Clearly he was taking no chances this time. _Imperial Center, _thought Luke with a gulp. _The Emperor._

Now he didn't even _want _the food. Or the garnish. Luke resumed pacing.

After he'd reached lap eighty-three, he had a bad feeling that he was approaching Dark Side levels anger-wise. _Calm, _repeated the Jedi to himself over and over. _There is no anger._

He sat down on the low bed and began to meditate, stretching out with the Force. There were two storm troopers immediately outside his door, and at least a dozen more on each side of the hall. Around him were empty cells, and behind him another hallway and yet more storm troopers.

He stretched out further. There was no sign of Ben Kenobi, who he'd been half hoping for. There were just more storm troopers and crew members. It was incredible how _big _this ship was. He'd gotten used to ships the size of floating skyscrapers with the Alliance, but they were nothing compared to the _Executor. _

_Which in turn was nothing compared to the Death Star, and I blew that up._

The thought gave him a small surge of confidence.


	9. Chapter 9

**I passed the 50 review mark! Thank you guys so, so much.**

**Also- small question. This is a shorter one than usual. Would ya'll prefer shorter chapters and the daily pace for as long as possible, or would the daily pace (as I run through what I've already written faster than I can write) ending sooner be all right in exhange for longer chapters?**

**Or am I worrying too much about a fanfic schedule?**

**Smiles!**

**Lou.**Obi-Wan yawned. This. This was _peaceful. _He was one with the force, and while he didn't stop to check, he was sure that Anakin's ship continued to speed through hyperspace on its mission.

* * *

"Obi-Wan!"

"Qui Gon!"

He hadn't seen his former master in quite some time. "Anakin- the past- time travel-"

Qui Gon merely gave the Jedi one of his rather enigmatic smiles. "I'd be a bit more concerned about the here and now, Obi-Wan."

His face obviously registered confusion.

"Seriously, Obi-Wan. I'd wake up."

Mumbling to himself about disturbances in both sleep and the Force, and waving a tired good bye to Qui Gon, Obi-Wan shimmered into being in the corporeal world once more. And he could tell immediately that he was just in time.

"What are you talking about?!"

Captain Solo was pointing one index finger at Anakin with a decidedly hostile expression on his face. "Who are you, and what are you talking about?!"

"I thought we went over this," interrupted Obi-Wan smoothly. They both stared at him. "As I said before, I am a force-ghost visible to you for some reason, and he is a time traveler from the Clone Wars who happens to be the father of-"

"He's too old for her!" bellowed Anakin.

Oh, this was just lovely. "Anakin, may I remind you of two things?"

The younger Jedi glared at him sullenly.

"One, you've never actually _met _your daughter. And secondly, may I possibly remind you that you are _not _one to be lecturing others about romantic relationships?"

"That's different," muttered Anakin.

"Yes, it is. It was the most irresponsible thing you've ever done in your life. It led to your turn to the Dark Side, Anakin. _It destroyed the galaxy. _You put yourself ahead of everyone else, and you have no right to _any _of this argument."

"I wouldn't change it," muttered Anakin.

"What?"

"I don't mean I wouldn't- won't- change other things, Obi-Wan. But I wouldn't change that. I don't- I know I wasn't there- but falling in love didn't destroy me. It was listening to Palpatine, from what you've said. I understand that the names sound somewhat alike, but, see, Padmé has two syllables and she's the good-looking one."

Anakin fixed Obi-Wan with his all-too familiar scornful scowl.

"It was all our faults." Obi-Wan bowed his head.

The small hologram on the receiver in front of them suddenly spoke up. "Um, Captain Solo? Your guest is speaking to thin air. You do realize this, don't you? Is someone else in there out of sight range?"

-

Aboard the _Executor, _Luke continued his meditation, expanding his vision of the ship yet further.

_Son._

Luke mentally ran though his vocabulary of Huttese swear words and then hoped Vader could neither hear nor understand them.

_Let me go._

_Join me._

Well, this conversation appeared to be going nowhere they hadn't been before.

_No. And don't take me to Imperial Center._

_I'm not._

_Sure. _Could his mental tone convey sarcasm correctly? Was he seriously being sarcastic to a Dark Lord of the Sith? Who was his _father?_

_The Emperor does not need to be involved in your training._

_You will never train me. _This sort of conversation thing was surprisingly easy. Pity there wasn't anyone better to talk to. _I am a Jedi, _thought Luke as defiantly as he could.

_I once thought as you did._

_-_

Vader snapped out of meditation in sudden alarm. Had he really _said_ that? Had he possibly drawn any connection between his life and that of a long-dead fool?

There were no crushable items left in his hyperbaric chamber, which was rather a pity.

_What is wrong with me?_

_-_

_What is wrong with me?_

"All I'm sayin'," said the Rodian on the communicator, "is this. Is he… all right?"

If there was ever a correct time for Anakin to yell at Obi-Wan that there were voices in his head, this was not it.

-

"After you, your Highness."

Leia glanced around the communications room. A few techs were still at their desks, engrossed in things that were probably not official Alliance business, but the majority of the population of the large room was gathered around a single communications console.

Janson cleared his throat. "Hey, computer-faces! Make way for her Highness!" The man made a singularly obnoxious trumpet noise.

No. Not singularly obnoxious. One man in her life got the label of singularly obnoxious, and he was gone.

Everyone but a single giggling Rodian cleared rapidly away from the console. Leia was fairly sure that noise was giggling, at least.

"Yes sir, we'll get him to the medbay." The Rodian woman backed away from the hologram console with a sweeping gesture. "So, wait, they _were-"_

Behind Leia, she heard the sound of a man shaking his head rapidly and a muttered "I said to keep it a surprise!"

The Rodian treated him to a glare. "Whatever, pilot."

Leia was growing impatient rapidly. "Where exactly is this emergency?"

Janson came around in front of her and gestured towards the communications receiver. "Voila, milady!"

-

If the screamed _**"WRONG!"**_ through the Force had been the most startling thing to happen to multiple force-sensitives that week, the sudden sense of "_**JOY**__**"**_ was probably the best.

In most cases.

In his cell, not quite daring to continue meditation, Luke was mildly encouraged by the feeling and confused by its familiarity.

The familiarity was even more confusing to Darth Vader, whose immediately crushed the joyous emotion into small pieces and threw them at the sides of his mind. It was ineffective.

The Emperor was not actually startled, or at least would not admit to it, and all witnesses to the fact that he jumped in horrified surprise when the emotion hit his mind died quick but very painful deaths.

And, of course, on Dagobah, Master Yoda interrupted his late-mid-morning meditation to once again "hrmph." This time the noise was followed with a mildly irritated sigh.

-

"I have no noticeable psychological problems."

"You have no noticeable psychological problems."

"I am the picture of health and worthy of trust."

"You are the picture of health and worthy of trust."

"You will let me out of medbay now."

"I will let you out of medbay now."

"Have a chocolate."

"Have a chocolate."

_Well_, thought Anakin, munching on the candy, _that was accomplished rather smoothly. _

Now, to continue the interrupted mission. He just had to make it back to his fighter, or possibly to a better, futuristic one, and rescue his son. He could leave his annoying potential son-in-law behind, and while it pained him to not even speak with the woman who was apparently his daughter, she was not about to be turned to the Dark Side by a future version of himself.

His son was, and while Anakin had been accused of not having his priorities straight, he considered his accusers very wrong.

"Obi-Wan!"

The force-ghost did not answer, and Anakin decided not to call again. He didn't want to be dragged back into the medbay to stare at static patterns again.

_Um, Obi-Wan?_ He attempted a mental call, unsure if it worked on dead people.

_Anakin. You got out, I presume?_

_Yes._

_Good job. Go down those stairs and to the left, and there's a hangar bay. _

_My ship's there?_

_It won't hold five._


	10. Chapter 10

**Thanks to all the reviewers and readers!**

**(The five people are Obi-Wan, Anakin, Han, Leia, and on the return trip hopefully Luke, to answer that question.)**

**Smiles!**

**Lou**

* * *

"Chewie's with him."

"I don't care if the kriffing _Emperor's_ with him. You gave _Lando _my ship?"

"It wasn't exactly my idea, Han!"

Anakin entered the hangar bay in the midst of an argument. Leia- his _daughter_- glanced up at him.

"Aren't you supposed to be in medbay?"

"No," came an ethereal voice. "Anakin is fine. Now, if we could please decide on a ship?"

"Look, ghost-guy, how about you choose the ship?"

"And how about we get to rescuing my son now?" inquired Anakin angrily.

The three people next to the line of shuttles stared at the irate Jedi.

"Your _what?_" inquired Leia.

Anakin just glared some more. "I pick this one." His practiced ship-judging eye had spotted the shuttle immediately. He may not have known much about the engines of these future ships, but anything someone had gone to the trouble of painting hotrod flames on had to be much loved and for a good reason.

"That ship was recently captured- and _painted_- by Rogue Squadron. It belongs to Wedge Antilles," said Leia imperiously in a manner reminiscent of Padmé in a mood. "It's not available."

"Jedi privilege," muttered Anakin. He Force-slammed the loading door of the shuttle down to the hangar's metal floor, probably damaging the locking mechanism. "Now have fun being Rebellion-y, I'm out of here."

"We're coming after Luke," said Leia.

_Sith. This so figured. Was everyone in the future engaged in a conspiracy to slow him down whenever possible? Even his own children?_

Anakin decided to ignore her comment in the hopes that it would go away, but Leia, Han, and Obi-Wan followed him into the shuttle anyway.

"Can we really trust this guy?" The smuggler's voice was skeptical.

"I told you, he's General Kenobi. Don't you remember him?" His daughter, this time.

"The one I knew wasn't transparent."

"No," agreed Obi-Wan's voice. "Rather inconvenient side effect of dying." The voice became louder. "Anakin, set the autopilot and get down to the main bay. We have things to discuss with our guests."

_Guests. _Right. This was _his_ mission, _his_ fault. Two people leaving, three returning. Not dragging along some huge crowd.

Grumbling to himself, Anakin guided the shuttle out of the hangar, set the autopilot towards where he felt his son was, and slammed the ship into hyperspace. He did all these things as quickly as possible, but once the essential, son-rescuing portions of his tasks were complete, the Jedi slowed down. He walked, very, very slowly down a short corridor. He pretended to get lost. He missed the correct entryway at least twice, whistling to himself.

"Anakin! Get in here!"

_Technically he's dead. I don't have to obey him. I'm a Knight now. _

_Except that I'm why he's dead, so I owe it to him._

Anakin grumbled something dark under his breath, then straightened his shoulders and slid open the entrance to the main bay of the small ship. "Obi-Wan," he said, deliberately ignoring the Uninvited Passengers. Sure, the woman was apparently his daughter (his _daughter!)_, but that didn't give her the right to barge in on important rescue missions. And just because the two of them had actually _met _Luke did not mean they were qualified for this rescue mission.

It wasn't _their _stupid evil future selves they would have to fight.

"Well, Anakin," said Obi-Wan in a mildly annoyed tone, "I was going to have us all do introductions, but as you are late, it'll just be you."

Anakin was now looking away from every single occupant of the room, including himself. "You've gone over the basics?"

"Nope."

_Curse you, Obi-Wan Kenobi._

_-_

Anakin had told his story without looking at anyone, and while it was not the hardest thing he'd ever done, it was tough.

When he stopped speaking, there was a very awkward silence. Finally, the time traveler glanced up, his face expressionless. He couldn't decide which emotion to use.

The woman- it was still difficult to connect an adult standing in front of him with the whole "daughter" concept- had her hand clenched on Solo's arm. Both of their faces were drawn, with something grim their eyes that Anakin could only perceive as hatred.

It mad him mad.

"Be that way, then," he hissed. "Blame me for what I haven't done yet. What I _won't _do, if I ever get home, which I'm beginning to doubt. I'm not the person we're trying to fight. He killed everything that was ever important to me, in case you didn't get the details of that from what I said. And I'm going to kill him."

"Anakin," said Obi-Wan.

"_What?"_

"No one said anything about you being-"

"I was going to," said Leia suddenly. "I'm… sorry."

Her voice was not completely sincere, but she meant well.

"All right," said Anakin, also not completely sincere. These people didn't feel like family at all. His family was Padmé and possibly Obi-Wan, not a bunch of future-relatives who hated him for no reason.

"The system over there says it's about fifteen minutes 'til we're out of hyperspace," commented Han. "Do we actually have any plans for this, or is it going to be another one of those 'run in with guns blazing' things the Rebellion is so fond of?"

Leia muttered something at him under her breath. "You're one to talk."

They held each other's eyes for longer than Anakin felt was strictly necessary, but he kept quiet.

"Actually," said Obi-Wan, "I have been making a plan. Of course, I expect Anakin to ruin it within minutes, but at least it's a starting point."

Apparently Han and Leia were not ready for "Anakin ruining things" jokes. Or possibly it just hadn't been funny. Obi-Wan wasn't completely sure, but at least Ani had showed his normal "eye-rolling" reaction.

"And, Anakin," the force-ghost said rather more sternly, "we are hoping not to engage anyone in combat at all."

Anakin snorted, and was pleased to see that Captain Solo apparently had a similar reaction. Maybe the man wasn't so bad after all. Even if he had come along on a mission uninvited. Or at least only invited by Obi-Wan, who should not have had the right to invite anyone at all.

"Look, um, Kenobi," said Han. "We're rescuing a high security prisoner from a _giant Imperial battleship. _Now, I have some experience in this area, and I can tell you that typically, it's gonna involve fighting." The man's tone was more than slightly condescending, a point which did not evade or fail to annoy Anakin. Still, Solo was also _right._

"Look, Obi-Wan," said Anakin. "How about we just… improvise? Sneak aboard the ship somehow and run to the cells? Any of you know anything about the ventilation systems on the ship?"

Obi-Wan smiled to himself. As ashamed as he was to admit it, "leave it to Anakin" had been, for perhaps the first time, his Plan A.

-

There was something going on in the edges of Darth Vader's mind that the Sith could not completely figure out. At first he had assumed it was some trick of his helmet's brain-linked hearing circuits. Probably crewmen having a conversation.

"I want complete silence, radio and otherwise, on this entire ship!" he had snapped to one of the guards nearby, who had relayed the order, much to the displeasure and confusion of the crew.

It had been in effect for at least fifteen minutes now, and the whispering noises in his mind continued. After much ineffective pacing through the halls, he had retreated once again to his meditation pod, removing his helmet and verifying that, no, it was not a malfunction.

_Luke, _he demanded silently.

_Go away._

It was not his son, then. He tried focusing on the murmurings alone, to decipher what exactly was being said, if anything at all.

_New portion of the plan, Obi-Wan. I want this ship._

What?

_Ha ha, Anakin, very funny. Are we going to let the tractor beam catch us?_

_I thought you were planning this. And I wasn't kidding about the ship._

_We'll call that plan B, Anakin. _

-

"Is there a ship approaching?"

Ream had been quite alarmed when Darth Vader had strode onto the bridge. He'd felt the same momentary flush of fear- please don't let it be something _I've_ done- that everyone else had, and then the same relief when the menacing figure had passed him by.

He'd felt some concern for Admiral Piett when whatever had happened turned out to be _his_ duty. While not overly inspiring, the Admiral was a competent officer and would be missed more than most of his predecessors.

But apparently Vader wasn't angry. Or at least not all that much more angry than usual.

Ream couldn't hear what Piett had to say about ships, but it was apparently unsatisfactory.

Someone elbowed Ream in the side. "Ream. Your computer."

Oh. A small patch of light, representing an unfamiliar shuttlecraft, was entering the screen in front of him.

"Admiral!" called out the man, hoping his voice wasn't shaking too much. "A shuttlecraft is approaching, port stern!" It wasn't technically his job to spot approaching crafts- there was an entire room down a few decks full of the people whose job it _was_- but if Vader wanted to know about them, it was best that someone found the information.

He just would've preferred it to be someone other than himself.

Up near the front viewport, Vader turned his masked face towards Piett in what Ream supposed was an inquisitive manner.

"A shuttlecraft is approaching, milord," said the Admiral, rather redundantly. Ream had to strain to hear him.

"Good," said Vader. Ream did _not _have to strain to hear him. "Contact them. Believe whatever they say, and allow them to land. Have a boarding party ready, and bring the passengers to me- alive."

This was the sort of behavior the men had learned to expect while chasing Skywalker- but hadn't they just _caught _Skywalker?

"Yes, milord," said Piett nervously, and Vader strode back along the row of computers and off of the bridge.


	11. Chapter 11

**Just to tell you, there will not be an update tomorrow, and possibly also not on Sunday. Daily updates aren't ending- I'm going camping, and computers aren't really an option out in the Blue Ridge. Sorry! This chapter's longish in an attempt to make up for that.**

**Smiles!**

**Lou.**

* * *

"There's no possibility they actually believed we were an Imperial shuttle."

Anakin rolled his eyes. "It was a mind trick, Leia."

"I know what mind tricks are…" she paused as if trying to decide whether to use his name or not, and what name to use. "…And they said they believed us before you even used one. They're letting us into a trap."

"I know," said Anakin, shrugging. "I'm looking forward to it."

The look she gave him concerned him.

"I'm pretty sure that you don't stop existing if I die, if that's why you're worried. The Force will find a way to fix it."

"We're landing," called Han from the front of the ship. "Do we start blasting now, or later?"

"Now," suggested Anakin.

"Soon," said Obi-Wan with a sigh. "I'll get off, and you two can follow Anakin."

Anakin smirked. "Are you seriously leaving me in command, Obi-Wan? Isn't that your job?"

_What did the galaxy come to, _thought Obi-Wan, _that Jedi began to laugh at battle?_

Aloud, he cleared his intangible throat. "Just wait a few seconds until I'm gone." With that, the force-ghost disappeared, his voice replaced by the harsh sound of storm troopers banging down the ship's entrance.

"This," hissed Leia to Anakin, "is why I told you not to steal Commander Antilles' ship."

Anakin did not appear remorseful. "Jedi privilege. And don't talk to your father that way."

Leia turned her back on him and headed to the front of the ship.

_All right. So no jokes yet. _This whole parenting thing was seriously getting on his nerves.

-

Luke continued to sit grumpily on his bed. An order for complete silence ship wide had occurred about twenty minutes ago. He wasn't sure if it applied to him or not, but just in case, he had spent several minutes humming very loudly and kicking at one wall. No one had responded, and when his feet had begun to hurt, he'd stopped.

Yoda had taught him a few ways of shielding his mind, but he could remember only a couple of them and could focus on even fewer.

This, of course, meant none.

When he wasn't kicking walls, humming, or mind-shielding, he was focusing on being bored. There was, he had discovered, a box under the bed containing a datapad, but as it was entitled "The Glories of the Empire," it was not on his required reading list.

So there was nothing to do.

_Luke!_

Oh. Never mind. It appeared now there was someone to talk to mentally. Just what he'd always wanted, wasn't it?

_Go. Away._

_We are having a minor incident. Remain where you are._

_Go. Away._

_I was planning to begin a small amount of philosophical training earlier. I assure you that while you remain of paramount importance, this is more immediately pressing._

What? Was he supposed to be disappointed or something?

_Philosophical training will be futile. I am a Jedi._

There was only silence.

Seriously, who did Vader think he was, Aunt Beru? "You remain of paramount importance." "You're sick, Luke. That's more important than the Tatooine Farmwives Sewing Circle."

What universe was he in, again? Vader had _stolen_ Luke's dream of an awesome father. Did he seriously think they were just going to be some sort of happy little evil family?

_Luke!_

_Go away- wait, Ben?!_

"Luke!" Ben Kenobi's ghost appeared fully. "I'd have come earlier, but I'm afraid certain people slowed me down."

"Can you get me out of here?" Please, please, please just get me out of here.

Ben smiled. "A rescue party should be arriving shortly. Some friends of yours."

Great. Now his friends- Rogue Squadron, almost certainly- were putting themselves in danger because he'd been stupid enough to get captured chasing a nonexistent Jedi.

"I'm sorry, Ben."

"Sorry about what, young Luke? You did the reasonable thing, if not the wisest. I should have realized you'd have felt the disturbance too, and would go to investigate."

Luke jumped slightly. "So there was a Jedi?"

"Oh, there was more than just a Jedi, Luke. If I'm not mistaken, he's at the door."

As the force-ghost spoke, the door slid open.

"_Artoo?_"

The droid beeped cheerfully as two storm troopers with welding-torch marks on their armor slowly raised themselves off of the floor.

"Code Red!" yelled one of them into a communicator. "Rogue Astromech in cell-"

He cut off as Obi-Wan force-pushed both troopers against the wall.

"No, not Artoo. _Confound it._ Where is that boy? Ah, well, it can't be helped. Come on, Luke." This was all said at a much higher rate of speed than Luke had ever heard Ben use before.

Still, speed-talking was not exactly enough to dissuade him from escaping. The Jedi sprang over to the side of one of the storm troopers, stealing the Imperial issue blaster and then carefully sliding down the side of the hall.

"Luke. Wrong way."

_Blast it. _"Sorry," he whispered.

Ben said nothing, seeming preoccupied.

"So, where's my X-wing?" Artoo had been aboard the ship, it only made sense that his fighter would be too.

"I don't know, Luke."

"So how am I going to get out?"

"I told you, Luke," said Ben with a sigh. "Your friends are after you. Though they should've been here by now."

Great. Now on top of all his other problems, he had to worry about whether or not the Rogues were all right. Maybe he could say that he'd stay if they were let go- would he do that?

Yes. He supposed he was that sort of idiotically noble person. Curse his upbringing.

"Are they all right?"

"Leia and Captain Solo are fine, Luke. Now, which-"

"Leia and _Han?!"_

"It's a long story," sighed Ben. "A very, very long story. Now, if you'll just follow-" Ben stopped dead. "Oh, no."

Luke's reaction was on the opposite end of the spectrum. "Han! Leia!" He waved frantically.

Obi-Wan scowled deeply at the couple. "And _what, _exactly, happened to Anakin?"

-

Anakin hadn't meant, exactly, to get separated from the rest of the group. He wasn't _complaining, _or anything, but he hadn't _planned _on everything working out this well. It just _had._

The other three, who, with the possibly exception of transparent Obi-Wan, didn't want him around anyway, could go rescue Luke. This would save him more long, annoying discussions about things that weren't his fault.

Meanwhile, he could go teach his future self a thing or two about what happened to people who messed with Anakin Skywalker's life.

Of course, now that he'd been wandering for a while, he was beginning to spot a few flaws in his plans. Not the obvious ones, of course, but a few others.

He had no idea what his future self even _looked _like. Obi-Wan had mentioned something about a life-support suit, but what in the world did one of _those_ look like? A modified uniform of the not-clone-troops?

He had fought several of them already, but none of them seemed to have any Dark Side presence. No, that presence was somewhere at the other end of the ship.

The other end of this giant, city-sized ship.

So Anakin's secondary mission for the last few minutes had been not only looking for his future self, but looking for where they kept the speeders on this ship. There had to be some variety of them somewhere, and he was regretting having left the one he'd purchased back on Tatooine.

It was really annoying to be on two unsuccessful missions at once- what was that?

The Dark Side. There was something very nearby now that felt suspiciously familiar to that tree on that stupid swamp planet Master Yoda had insisted he visit last a few weeks ago. Apparently, "teach you something, it will," but all it had really taught him was that he hated swamps almost as much as deserts.

It wasn't his future self, but it had to mean _something._

Anakin elegantly sliced down the door of the supply closet his son had hidden in earlier. The door to the secret tunnel was still open.

_There. _That was where it was coming from. The tunnel. Lightsaber held high in case of a sneak attack, Anakin slowly walked into the tunnel.

_Hello? _he called out mentally.

A few whispers on the edge of his mind were the only response. He decided not to try again.

His lightsaber cast enough- if rather oddly scattered- light to see by, but not to see too far ahead. And it was thusly that Anakin found himself stumbling down a flight of stairs onto some sort of heavy door.

_Sith! _

On second though, perhaps he would not use that curse word again. Ever.

_Stang!_

Luckily, he had neither landed on nor damaged his lightsaber, and by waving it around he could see that the door was some thick, dark alloy of metal. It was creepy, and that was not an adjective Anakin was prone to using concerning doors. There was some sort of box on it that might've been a lock.

Anakin focused on it, using the Force to try to see the inner mechanisms.

_Click!_

Well. That had been suspiciously easy. But the important thing was that the Creepy Door was now open, and he could go through.

It slammed shut behind him as soon as he did, and it did not escape his notice that there was no lock or handle on this side. Still, he was armed with a lightsaber. Doors were not his biggest concern.

It was what was on this side of the door that was. A ship- or not quite a ship. Some sort of heavily modified speeder thing, from what Anakin could see of it, all black and mostly engine.

Well, his transportation problem was solved all right. The Jedi climbed into the seat of the speeder. The thing was fairly tough to start- a keycode might've helped him- but he finally managed to hotrod it into moving.

"Wahoo!"

His shout of joy echoed off the sides of the tunnel as he sped down it, having more fun than he'd had since at least the last time he'd flown something.

It would've significantly dampened his mood had he known yet what was waiting at the other end.

-

"But it's like, he spends all his time for three years trying to capture me, and now that he's finally got a chance to 'complete my training' he just locks me in a cell and throws away the key? It makes absolutely no sense…"

"Look, kid, your family problems are fascinating, but you really need to listen to Obi-Wan now."

Obi-Wan's ghost was rather pleasantly surprised to hear the smuggler refer to him by his real name as opposed to "old ghost guy" or "Ben". This entire mission seemed to, in fact, be running much smoother _without_ Anakin, and the Chosen One had only been lost for a few minutes.

"I'm sorry, Ben," said Luke, his face an innocent picture of contrition.

"It's all right, Luke. Leia?"

The woman cleared her throat. "Luke… I'm your sister."

"_Huh?_ But that means-"

His sentence would've been completed with either "Vader is your father too" or "stang, Hoth medbay, ew ew ew…" but he hadn't quite decided which when Obi-Wan spoke up again in the new speed-talking voice he'd developed. (Or, really, regained with the return of Anakin).

"Also a version of your father from the Clone Wars when he was a Jedi is lost on this ship and I don't even want to know _what _he is up to, can we go now?" He punctuated the end of the drawn-out sentence by gliding rapidly towards a flight of stairs.

Leia grabbed Luke's hand, as her brother appeared too stunned to actually move of his own volition. "_Come on!"_

Han jogged alongside them. "Just out of curiosity, are we ever going to get any time to actually _discuss _any of these life-changing revelations?"

"_Follow me!" _yelled Obi-Wan again, now halfway down the stairs.

"Do you even know where we're going?!"

The force-ghost didn't answer.


	12. Chapter 12

**This chapter is a bit later than I wanted it to be. But I have an excuse! I was editing. I managed to fix a mistake that would've, in all probability, sort of ruined the story for the next few chapters. Also delayed most of the exciting stuff by far, far too long...**

**Thanks to all the awesome reviewers and readers, and sorry about the unrequested behind-the-scenes info.**

**Smiles!**

**Lou.**

* * *

Anakin flew the length of the star destroyer in under a minute. He was disappointed. Now that the exhilaration of movement had stopped, every single problem and revelation of the past two days decided to hit him very hard in the head.

He crunched them with a mental fist. It was only moderately effective, and as soon as the stifling darkness in the atmosphere replaced them, he wanted them back.

He could barely _breathe. _

If his future self (he really had to figure out what the guy's name was, future self just wasn't cutting it) wasn't what was causing the darkness around here, then something that deserved destruction just as much _was._

There were stairs- why stairs?- at the end of the hallway. He couldn't see them. He knew they were there, because he'd ordered them made here.

No, he hadn't! He'd never even been here before!

He knew the code to open the door at the top, a random string of numbers that finally had nothing to do with _her._

No, he didn't! Or at least not the story behind them. Anakin wasn't going to complain too much about being able to open the door.

The room beyond was empty, but he knew that the slightly door on the other side led to his quarry.

Because he could _sense his presence, _not because half of him was sure that he, himself, was in that room already.

He didn't mean for his steps to slow. He actually meant to speed up. He wasn't sure what was happening, but the whispers in his head were getting louder.

"_Come with me."_

A flood of memories- they were _not his_- hit Anakin's mind with the force of a charging rancor.

_Padmé fell to the ground, and he knew she was dead and it was _his _fault._

Anakin charged.

-

Darth Vader had been meditating, and he was about to give up. If anything, the thrice-blasted whispering sounds were getting _louder, _not quieter, not to mention the series of increasingly nervous officers in the hallway three rooms back debating amongst themselves whether or not to tell him that everything was going horribly wrong.

By now they really should've realized it was a lose-lose proposition, but some people never learned.

And then, of course, there was the matter of the fact that he may have been going mad, what with mistaking the voice of a rebel pilot for that of Anakin Skywalker and demanded that the ship be captured instead of shot down in the first place.

He was regretting that action.

Anakin Skywalker was _dead, _no matter if a traveler on Tatooine used his name or a rebel pilot used his voice. (_And _his name. _And _Kenobi's.)

He had very nearly convinced himself of this when the whispers turned into shouts of glee. It was difficult to imagine anything that belonged in a Sith's mind less than boyish shouts of glee, and he had no idea why these were there.

A wave of the dark side (and the end of the speeder ride, but Darth Vader did not know this) managed to stop the shouts, even if they didn't stop the whispering, which, while he didn't exactly have a baseline, seemed louder.

_He opened the lock._

No, he quite obviously did not, as he was sitting here.

_Such a strange room. Ugly._

Ugly, but not strange. Practical- _was he _arguing _with nonexistent whispers now?_

And then for a second he saw Padmé's face, and that was preposterous because she was dead, he'd killed her.

_Padmé fell to the ground, and he knew she was dead and it was _his _fault._

A glaring blue lightsaber slashed through the wall of his mediation pod.

-

In the part of his mind that still belonged to him, Anakin had one almost-clear thought. _Stang, I _hate _the future._

Or this box-thing. It was annoying and hard to cut through and _in the way _of his only important goal right now. Namely: Death To Future Self.

With a jerk, he crashed a section of the pod off of its hinges and into the wall of the chamber.

And stopped dead.

-

As the frantic group of searchers followed Obi-Wan into the closet ("I think he's lost it." "Shut up, Han."), they watched in horror as the force-ghost slammed to halt with his head in his hands and began to flicker.

Luke glanced around with wide eyes and spoke for the first time since the chase had begun. "He's gone."

-

In the so-called "bright center of the galaxy" (Coruscant, or, as no one actually called it, Imperial Center), Emperor Palpatine finally had an opportunity to begin planning his response to the various disturbances in the Force. All the essential meetings with his various pawns had been concluded, and all of those plans were going well. None of them, however, had factored in _whatever _was going on. Not that he didn't know. He just wasn't completely sure of the details, yet.

Perhaps Vader had something to do with it. Annoyingly typical. Sighing, the Emperor turned on the hologram link to the _Executor._

No one answered.

The Sith began to mentally fry the circuits of the communication device, causing both it and it's counterpart on the flagship to glow menacingly.

Finally, a petrified officer appeared, apparently having been shoved in front of the communicator by one of his fellows.

"Your Majesty!"

"Where is Lord Vader?" growled Palpatine.

Beads of sweat were now dripping down the unfortunate officer's forehead. Palpatine had a pleasant vision of the man's entire head melting.

"There's been a minor emergency on board, your Majesty, and I'm afraid he is currently occupied." The man's voice was basically a squeak. _Why, why, why, WHY did I ever accept that promotion? _"Actually, he forbid all noise on the ship, your Majesty, sir…"

"Tell him to contact me immediately. There certainly is _nothing _that important he can be doing."

The hologram flickered away, leaving the bridge officers shell-shocked and the Emperor pensive.

He was under no illusions that his apprentice _would _actually contact him anytime within the next few hours, if not more.

The ruler of the galaxy sighed. Perhaps, after all his planning and victories, that would wind up his only worthwhile contribution to Sith lore. Never allow your apprentice to reproduce.

-

Obi-Wan flickered into being just in time to see Anakin, who was standing with a horrified expression in his eyes and his lightsaber in a loose combat position, near-surrounded by storm troopers and appearing to be unaware of that fact.

Within seconds the time traveler was completely surrounded, and in a few more his lightsaber had been flung out of his grasp and into the air, arcing towards Vader's hand-

Then towards Obi-Wan's. And then through it, where it hit the wall. _Of all times for the laws of the universe to reassert themselves._

For a second every pair of eyes in the chamber were pointed towards the force-ghost, though only two pairs could actually see him. Anakin's face was still horrified but now furious, which was, Obi-Wan thought, rather to be expected, but the force-ghost's eyes only rested on the time-traveler's face for a few seconds before turning to Vader's helmetless visage. It struck Obi-Wan that he'd never seen before just what had happened to Anakin's face after Mustafar. On the whole, he supposed there was more than one reason for the helmet.

A few mechanical gears slowly lowered said helmet back onto Vader's face, interrupting Obi-Wan's thoughts.

There were a few seconds when no one spoke. There was really very little to say under the circumstances.

"It was always rather a nightmare of mine," remarked Obi-Wan finally. "Trapped in a room with two Anakin Skywalkers."

Anakin shivered noticeably.

A storm trooper dug a blaster into the young Jedi's side, and he responded by finally changing his expression and kicking the Imperial in his white-armored shin.

"You little-"

"Enough," said Vader finally, standing up. "I will-"

"Yaaaaaaaaaaah!" A howled war cry reverberated in the air as Luke Skywalker barged into the room, blaster firing. Han and Leia were a few steps behind him.

Obi-Wan regained his composure, immediately getting on the offensive by force-pushing a few troopers away from Anakin, who spun around with a few more shin-kicks in an only mild successful attempt to dispatch the rest.

It did, however, free his arms. Just as Luke bent to pick up the lightsaber on the floor, it flew from his grasp and into Anakin's hand. "Hey!"

Anakin didn't respond. He didn't even seem to notice anything. His eyes, now set with a hatred that frightened Obi-Wan, were focused on Vader.

"A valiant effort," said the Sith. Obi-Wan supposed he was glaring at them, so he glared back.

Han, who was facing the door that led to the hall, cursed.

A group of storm troopers too large to completely fit into the room was surrounding them from both doorways.

"Take the intruders to the cellblocks. I will interrogate the Jedi."

The storm troopers glanced around, the gazes of the eyeholes of their helmets shifting from Luke to Anakin and in a few cases to Leia or Han.

An angry, exasperated sigh was barely different from Darth Vader's normal breaths. "That one."

Anakin kicked another trooper in the shins.


	13. Chapter 13

**Thanks once again to all the readers and reviewers!**

**Smiles!**

**Lou**

* * *

"Do you really have to lock me up again?"

Luke couldn't really see the storm trooper's face, but somehow eyeholes in the helmet managed to be condescending. Still, enough was enough. If he got locked in a third Imperial cell in just over twenty-four hours, he'd never live it down with the Rogues.

And it might lead to questions about just why Vader was so obsessed with finding him, which was something he'd never live down with the Rogues in a much less humorous manner.

"I mean, I got out before. It's sort of pointless."

"He got out before," commented the trooper. "It's sort of pointless."

"It's orders," said the second storm trooper in an no-nonsense tone.

"No, it's not," said Luke.

"No, it's not," agreed the second trooper.

"Yes," said the third. "It is, you buffoons."

Stormtrooper One slapped Stormtrooper Three in the helmet. "How dare you insinuate we could've been given incorrect orders? It was not orders!"

Luke smiled. "I don't require these handcuffs, either."

-

Artoo Deetoo had objected greatly to following the humans into that closet and tunnel. His internal circuits were still trying to compute the apparent return of Fun-To-Fly-With-One, and he was not going to risk the challenge of stairs and a possible jarring fall.

And so as the humans ventured into the tunnel after Anakin, the Astromech droid headed off on his own merry way down the hall on a quest for Current-Owner's X-Wing. He'd managed to hotwire a few elevators to take him down levels, and then up a few, and he'd finally located the right computer only to discover that the X-Wing had not yet made it's way into the Imperial records.

This was almost as annoying as Threepio.

The droid had engaged in a short conversation with the ship's mainframe, which was as boring and straight-laced as most Imperial computers, but had some fascinating information that he was sure the Rebels would want.

Truly, where _would _those poor beings be without him?

This thought reminded him of the plight of the humans he'd discovered onboard. The ship's computer was thrilled to be of service in locating them, slightly miffed by its inability to locate the X-Wing's file.

Cellblock. It appeared that he'd have to roll back to the cellblocks that he'd _just _succeeded in getting Current-Owner out of.

He thanked the computer and headed off.

-

Han's cell was not nearly as nice as Luke's had been, but he didn't know this, and it was as well that he didn't because it only would have made him angrier.

It really wasn't fair. As soon as he'd developed a plan for his life involving anything other than the words "stay alive and try to get some money out of it," as soon as he'd begun to use the phrase "future" in a nonsarcastic manner, everything had done what he'd never thought was possible and gotten worse than before.

First there was the whole Hoth deal. Then Bespin. Then there was time-traveling Young Vader.

And now he was trapped in an Imperial cell, in all probability about to die for a Rebellion he'd never even technically joined.

He wished he'd done that now, to be honest. At least to die for _something_.

He supposed he had more regrets than that. He'd never told Leia he loved her, for one. He was still beating himself up over that. He'd never really thanked Chewie for much. He hadn't broken Lando's nose.

Still, his biggest regret, he though, was probably going to be not escaping from this cell. Maybe he could fix that one.

It was at this moment of epiphany that Artoo succeeded in getting his cell door open.

-

"What are you?"

Anakin glared at the expressionless black mask, refusing to answer.

As if on cue, a storm trooper jerked the young Jedi's handcuffed arm, trying to twist it painfully behind his back.

Watching invisibly from where he was hiding behind Vader, Obi-Wan winced.

Vader spoke again. "What are you?"

Silent suffering was really not something Anakin was good at, thought Obi-Wan. Oh, he could do it, but if possible he preferred to throw a tantrum. Still, if there was one thing Obi-Wan had learned during his time training the boy, stubbornness could make Anakin do the strangest things.

Perhaps now was the time to intercede.

_Don't you recognize him, Darth?_

What was going on? He couldn't talk! Attempting to become visible (he was not going to lower his dignity to miming responses to Vader, but perhaps he could provide moral support to Anakin), he found that he couldn't do that either.

Perhaps it was only to be expected. He'd never been visible as a Force-ghost for such a long time before.

"It'll wear off eventually," came a reassuring voice. "It's… sort of like recharging a droid."

Obi-Wan glared. "Thank you, Master Qui-Gon, for the timely advice."

"Patience, Obi-Wan. Anakin can fight his own battles."

The former hermit bowed his head. "That's what I'm afraid of."

-

Artoo beeped cheerily as the second cell door opened. This computer system was proving an excellent ally, even if it wasn't much for conversations.

Leia smiled at the two figures at the door. "Didn't we just get out of this- oof!"

Han swept her up into a kiss. "I love you."

Artoo made a rather exasperated noise. If this was going to be Fun-To-Fly-With and Handmaiden-Queen all over again, he was quitting his human-guarding job and being a spy full time.

And now the two humans were doing that same staring-into-eyes thing that his former owners had been so fond of. This was really not assisting the rescue mission he was currently embarked on.

The Astromech made a high-pitched whistling noise and snapped a few sparks from his welding torch at them.

"All right, all right. Calm down."

Artoo whistled in response to Leia's comment, then set off down the hallway towards the elevators at high speed.

-

A pointing, black-gloved finger was now inches from Anakin's face, and something was constricting around his throat. He tried to scrabble backwards, but the storm troopers were only inches behind him.

"_What are you?"_

Anakin drew a desperate breath, then screamed. "I'm _YOU!"_

The pressure around his throat disappeared.

"You are dead."

It was both a threat and a statement of fact.

"I'm very tough to kill," spat Anakin. _The dark didn't kill me. I won't _let _it kill me. _"Obi-Wan was, wasn't he? He beat you." There were tears at the edges of his eyes. He did not want them there, but there they were. He drew breath again, his eyes filling with anger. "He was tough to kill. Was…" Despite his best efforts, Anakin choked on the words. "Was Padmé?!"

The rage that blasted the time-traveler's mind through that statement was far from all his own.

"You are _dead!"_

Anakin fell to the floor, his arms still supported by the troopers, his throat collapsing.

"Um, milord, sir?"

Anakin gulped in air. Ew. Far too much sterile-ship-smell. He coughed, got kicked in the ribs, and managed by twisting his knee around uncomfortably to step on the rib-kicker's boot. If his plans for revenge had gotten messed up, at least he could still be incredibly annoying.

"What?" barked Vader, turning to the unfortunate officer (really, any officer on the _Executor _at that time could've been termed "unfortunate").

The officer gulped much as Anakin had. "The Emperor demands you contact him, milord, sir…"

If Anakin was not mistaken, the guy appeared to be attempted to list every respectful term of address in the book. _Great. My evil future self gets respect. What do I get? No, Anakin, you're doing everything wrong. _

_Of course, I did just do everything wrong._

"Inform his Majesty that I am currently occupied."

From the expression on Unfortunate Officer's face, Anakin surmised that this was not something anyone would want to tell the Emperor under any circumstances.

Trembling visibly- no wonder the Rebellion was so successful, thought Anakin, if this was the quality of the Empire- the officer held out a portable hologram transmitter.

In any other situation, Anakin would've had to choke back a laugh at the transmitter itself- it had apparently been _customized _by someone with the interior decorating skills of Jabba the Hutt, featuring what appeared to be some sort of striped animal print- let alone the concept of someone contacting the most important person in the galaxy on it.

Laughing just seemed to be a waste of precious, possibly short-lived air under this situation, however.


	14. Chapter 14

**Yay! I passed the 100 review mark! You guys are seriously fantastic!**

**Anyway, hope y'all enjoy the chapter, and thanks again.**

**Smiles!**

**Lou.**

* * *

"Don't shoot! It's me!" The alarmed figure in stormtrooper armor held his hands up and waved them in the air.

Han kept his blaster trained on the figure. "…Luke?"

The young Jedi removed his helmet. "Man, am I glad to see you guys! I didn't even know what cells you were in, I had to-"

"Artoo got us out," interrupted Leia with a trace of anger in her voice. "Luke, why didn't you _tell _us?"

The expression in the man's blue eyes was guarded. "Tell you what?"

"About Vader. Luke, the Alliance-"

"Are _you _going to tell them he's your father? Because I'm sure it'll sound great, Leia. The two major Rebel figureheads, Her Highness of Alderaan and the Last of the Jedi, children of the Empire's second in command. Great for morale, huh?"

His voice was more cynical then she'd heard it often before, almost like Han's.

"You could've told us," said Leia.

Oh. They thought he'd known all along, didn't they?

"He told me who he was at Bespin, Leia. It's not some giant secret I've had since I joined the Rebellion. I grew up thinking Anakin Skywalker worked on a _spice freighter._"

Both of them looked too upset now for Han's liking. "Yeah, he doesn't really seem like the spice freighter type."

Luke's face lit up. "Wait- so the man with the lightsaber- and the hair- that really was-"

Han smirked. "Sadly enough."

"_How?"_

It was, too be honest, the question (along with "how do we all get off this ship?") that they all wanted the answer to.

"I don't know," said Leia. "I don't think General Kenobi knew."

"Where is Ben?" asked Luke, tilting his head slightly to glance around the deserted hallway as if the force-ghost was hiding there.

Han breathed what was almost a silent relief. "So it's _not _that I just stopped being able to see him."

"You can-"

"Just add that to the list of things we don't understand, kid."

Luke scowled. "About things I don't understand. How are _you _here?"

"Funny little trick of fate, actually. Your father, pretty-boy, apparently found Jabba's taste in wall décor unattractive."

Luke supposed being used as wall décor was slightly better than his friend being tortured or dead, but it still wasn't something he really wanted to think about.

"It's all sort of funny, really," added Han. "Darth Vader started out with some good in him."

Luke started to say something, but he was quiet. What was he? Just some naive farm boy idealistic enough to think that maybe that good wasn't all gone. He was in minor shock about the fact that people could apparently know whose son he was and not hate him- he'd hated himself for a while- he didn't want them to think he was crazy to boot.

"Yeah," said Luke, and started to walk away, without even gesturing for them to follow.

The humans and droid did anyway.

-

Darth Vader stared at the hideous communication device in consternation. He couldn't contact the Emperor now. He had far, far more important duties, such as continuing to attempt to explain this madness.

He also had more than a slight suspicion that his master would not be overly pleased to find out about Luke being aboard- he wasn't sure he could hide that knowledge if they were face-to-face- and he knew for sure that only disaster could result if more beings than necessary found out about- about whatever it was restrained by the stormtroopers.

He gestured towards said troopers impatiently. "Get him out of my sight."

"Yes sir."

"I'm staying right here."

"Take him away," said Vader again.

Desperately, Anakin managed to fling one of the troopers off his mechanical arm. Leaning forward and tripping a second trooper, the time-traveler had time for a single triumphant smirk before pressing the on button of the communicator.

A small hologram flickered into being, and Vader's rage boiled.

-

Anakin had no real idea _why _he'd turned on the hologram projector. It was a combination of sheer rage at being able to do _nothing, _and a sense of boiling fury at being ordered around by an evil and older version of _himself_. When he thought that he wanted to only take orders from himself (which he thought frequently), that was _not _what he meant.

It was also a need to see the Emperor face-to-face. Once upon a time, if you had asked Anakin who would be the best Galactic Emperor, were such a person necessary, he probably would've said Palpatine. (Though some days he would've said himself.)

It was like finding out that _Obi-Wan _was evil.

_Like Obi-Wan finding out that I was evil._

He had felt horribly, hideously betrayed when Obi-Wan had told him about the founding of the Empire and the reasons behind his turn. But it had followed so close before the _worst, _the news that he had killed Padmé, that he hadn't thought about it for long.

Well, now he was thinking about it. As the communicator flickered and Imperial troops seized Anakin's arms again- he didn't make this easy for them-, the Jedi leaned forward as far as he could to see the hologram.

It was _letters._

_Greetings, _said the letters, which were scrolling up to a vanishing point. _You have reached Coruscant Love Connections! Find your soulmate in a few easy steps._

Anakin stared at the figure who appeared, boggle-eyed. If that was Palpatine, Anakin himself was a three-eyed rancor.

"_Hel-lo," _said the sultry figure in a seductive tone. "_I'm afraid you're on hold right now. Please listen to this medley of hit tunes from-"_

A black-gloved fist nearly split the projector in half from the force of its hit. The officer holding it buckled, his face a series of interesting blotchy colors.

"That," said Vader nastily, "was not the Emperor." It was perhaps the understatement of the day.

"No, milord," said the petrified Unfortunate Officer, or at least he tried to. As Vader clenched his fist again, the man's voice turned into a strangled squeak.

Anakin stared in horror. The man was _dying. _He- no, it wasn't him- was standing there, killing someone in cold blood.

Anakin wasn't sure just what he could do, but his futile struggles against the grips of the stormtroopers holding his arms became more frantic. He let loose a yell.

The officer in front of him continued to die.

Anakin watched his lifeless head hit the cold floor of the room.

Watched as they fell in front of him, his friends, his allies, his rivals, the younglings.

"No!" yelled Anakin. A blaster jabbed him painfully in the side, and he ignored it. "No!" He shut his eyes in defeat, trying to shut the visions out.

The troopers to either side stared at each other's helmets in alarm.

Vader whirled suddenly towards Anakin. "Young fool, you will-"

"Well," said a slightly distorted but familiar voice. "This is most interesting."

-

Hologram Controller Droid 130X was merely performing his duties as laid out by his programming. The ship's computer had contacted him with a few requests ("Malfunction in bridge. Message unanswered." "Designation R2D2 wishing encryption codes A through Z12.") and he'd preformed excellently, his internal records reporting 99.7 efficiency for the day. It would've been higher if he'd been recharged lately, but humans were always forgetful in that respect.

No, Onethree was quite proud of himself, or as proud as his limited emotion circuits would allow him to be.

And so, "Urgency Code, Link To Meditation Pod Chamber" had been carried out with the same efficiency that Onethree felt marked his career. And he was even prouder. It wasn't every day one ran across such an interesting and high-level message. Imperial Center!

There were only two beings in the galaxy pleased with the immediate results of Onethree's action, and the droid was the only one of them who would be pleased for very long.

He turned on the larger receiver on the wall of the pod chamber.

-

"Anakin," said the hologram of the Emperor, an evil smile sliding across the transparent face. "What a surprise and pleasure! Lord Vader, why did you not inform me of this? I wasn't at all sure where he had ended up."

Every bit of the false enthusiasm rang horribly familiar in Anakin's ears. Palpatine (What had happened to his _face? _Was everyone a freak in the future, or just himself, Palpatine, and old-transparent-Obi-Wan?). His mentor, his friend, always there to listen to his complaints.

Always there to tell him he was unappreciated, underestimated, unloved, _deserved better._

_I wasn't at all sure where he had ended up._

Horror rang in the Jedi's ears.

"You- you sent me here?"

"Of course. Anakin, what did they tell you?"

No one had told him anything. And this horrible mockery of a friendly, caring voice was not going to tell him anything either.

"Release him."

Anakin dropped to the ground. It felt uncomfortably like kneeling.

_Rise._

He wasn't sure who had said that one. All the not-his memories were back. They were flooding into his mind, all of them over a horrible laughing face.

Anakin screamed.


	15. Chapter 15

**I'm so sorry this is a couple hours late, y'all! Thanks to everybody for reading/reviewing!**

**Smiles.**

**Lou.**

* * *

Obi-Wan shivered violently. A Force Disturbance. One he could do nothing about, all because certain _someones_ had neglected to mention that his incorporeal form couldn't handle being visible for that long.

"What's going on?"

No one answered, not even Qui-Gon. The force-ghost opened his eyes.

Yoda was sitting in front of him.

"You aren't-"

"Among the living I am," said the Master shortly. "For now. Return, you must."

"I can't. Qui-Gon said-"

"Return you must! Argue with me, you will not."

Well, he'd certainly learned _that _lesson during his days as an Initiate. Arguing with Master Yoda was to be attempted only if you wanted a whack on the kneecaps.

"I'll-" No. There was no try. That was another one he'd learned at pain of gimer stick whack.

"Listen!" croaked Yoda suddenly, interrupting Obi-Wan's thoughts. "Lying, Sidious is!"

"Sidious?"

"Found Anakin, he has. Planning, he is!"

Yoda's wrinkled face was as deathly serious as Obi-Wan had ever seen it, and the force-ghost did not think to wonder how he knew about Anakin's return.

"No…" It was the worst possibility the old Jedi could imagine. Sidious with Vader by his side was bad enough. Sidious with a young Anakin- a second failure for Obi-Wan- that could not be possible.

_I will not let it be possible._

"A fool, young Anakin is still! Never should have been trained, yes…" Every bit of contempt the Council had ever had for Anakin shone forth in those words.

"We were all fools."

Yoda's bulbous eyes opened incredibly wide.

"We could've saved him," said Obi-Wan. "I could've saved him."

"His own fault it was."

Obi-Wan certainly could agree with that. "Yes." He bowed his head. "But it could've been different, Master Yoda. I could've… I can."

"Hrmph," said Yoda, if that could indeed be counted as a word.

Obi-Wan came very close to telling the small green Jedi to shut up, an action that he had rarely if ever before contemplated. "I'm going to save him."

"Hopeless, it is."

"No," said Obi-Wan, glaring, "it is _not."_

With considerably more effort than Obi-Wan was aware his incorporeal form could exert, the force-ghost managed to flicker away towards reality once more.

Within a few seconds, he had gone from the mystical plane completely.

Yoda smiled.

"Easier than I thought, that turned out to be," he said to someone.

-

"I really hate Imperial issue blasters," muttered Han.

"I think yours is just broken or something," said Luke. "My aim's fine."

"I don't care _why _it shoots two inches to the right, the fact remains that it _does._"

"Look," said Leia. "It's fine. We shot the guy anyway."

"Yeah, but _I _missed."

"Terribly sorry."

It felt nice to have his friends around him again, thought Luke, even if they were trapped aboard the Imperial flagship. They'd gotten out of worse situations than this, hadn't they?

Artoo bleeped cheerfully, as if the droid could read Luke's thoughts.

"So, where is time-travel Vader anyway?"

"Anakin," said Luke absently. "I'm pretty sure we should call him Anakin. And I don't actually know." The Jedi glared. "But if you won't come, I _will _go by myself."

"Luke," said Han. "Calm down. I owe the guy a favor. I just don't want to go wandering around this thing for the next ten years in search of him. I mean, we already did that looking for _you._"

"We just need to get back to that tunnel," said Leia. "They should still be at the other end of it."

"Let's just pray there's another speeder," muttered Han.

"There was," said a voice. "I think Anakin used it."

"Ben!"

The force-ghost looked around him. "I'm certainly rather further off than I meant to be."

"General Kenobi! You're back! Where were you?"

Sooner or later, thought Obi-Wan, he was going to have to standardize his name.

"That's not important," said Obi-Wan. "I really meant to end up where Anakin was, I simply don't know how much time I have left."

"What?" Luke's voice was confused.

"I can't stay in the corporeal plane permanently. If _certain people_ had allowed me to meditate instead of fighting with each other over who had the least responsible romantic relationship, I could've averted this whole problem with the Emperor."

Three highly alarmed faces stared at him. "The… Emperor?"

"Just try to get to a shuttle. I'll save him this time."

Han really hoped that the ghost didn't mean he was going to save the Emperor. "You'll save him this time?"

"I failed. It's _my_ job. Now, if you'll please-"

"We're all coming," said Luke. "You can go on ahead, but we _will _follow you." Suddenly nervous, he turned to his friends. (Or friend and sister. He wasn't sure what the proper terminology was anymore). "Right? I mean, I am, but…"

"I'll come," said Leia. Her voice was only slightly reluctant.

"I told you," said Han, "I owe the guy a favor."

-

Enough was enough.

Darth Vader could not, honestly, remember the last time he'd felt anything other than hatred for Sidious (the feeling was mutual), but this took the entire thing to a new level.

"_You _brought it here?"

It. The _thing, _kneeling there with the face of a dead man, a past that refused to stay in his subconscious where it belonged.

Vader had been fairly sure for quite a while that the only reason his master tolerated the Luke situation was the idea that the boy would make an excellent replacement apprentice, but as Vader's plan was to be the replacement Emperor in that situation, he had dismissed the idea of being replaced by his son as something that was not going to be allowed to happen.

But the idea of being replaced with himself…!

No. That would under no circumstances be ignored.

For a few seconds, he pondered whether or not to maintain a façade of loyalty, and for how long. He'd made his decision that the façade would vanish eventually long since, but the finality of treason was something else.

Fortunately, the tension was broken.

"You! Brought! Me! HERE?!"

-

Stormtroopers were not permitted to laugh. Stormtroopers were especially, under no circumstances, allowed to laugh at their superiors. Laughing because a prisoner made their superiors look foolish was unthinkable.

And the very concept of laughing because a prisoner had just attacked a projector showing a hologram of the Emperor was… Well, none of them actually had a word for that. Vocabulary was not a strongpoint of most stormtroopers.

So they didn't laugh. For some, it was harder than others.

Because both the prisoner and the now madly flickering hologram looked _ridiculous._

_-_

Anakin's immediate thought, which he was not proud of and which he would not admit to anyone, ever, under any circumstances, was to attack the hologram itself. But while common sense was not a virtue typically ascribed to the young Jedi, he did possess some increment of it, and attacking holograms was fairly stupid when you could go for the projector.

Of course the thing refused to detach from the wall. That was completely his luck. They didn't make future projectors any less blurry, apparently, but stang if they didn't make them near-impossible to detach from walls using only one's foot.

Behind him, the confused and cheek-biting stormtroopers regained their composure. There was no one to give orders, the Emperor and Vader being distracted and Unfortunate Officer being recently deceased, but they were fairly sure that in these circumstances one was supposed to apprehend the disrespectful kicking prisoner. Several of the ones nursing shin bruises were more enthusiastic than the rest.

But before they could reach Anakin- indeed, before most of them starting running/limping towards him, two very important things happened.

One, Obi-Wan Kenobi finally managed to materialize in the room.

And secondly, a black-gloved mechanical fist slammed the projectors off switch, and then hit it again for emphasis.


	16. Chapter 16

**Thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed! It really makes my day.**

**There'll be another weeked hiatus, I'm afraid. Church retreat. So, smiles, and see y'all monday.**

**Lou.**

* * *

The stormtroopers recovered first.

Certainly, everyone in the room was in shock. Obi-Wan was making very odd noises that may or may not have been attempts at words. Anakin had pretty much given up on anything else surprising him again _ever, _but had been possibly forced to change his mind. And the all-important fact that "Loyalty is Central to the Empire" driven into the stormtrooper's heads since birth had just been fairly effectively demolished.

Even Vader stared at his own hand for several milliseconds as if unable to completely believe what he'd just done.

But any trooper chosen for service on the _Executor _had to be incredibly good at following orders, and part of rising anywhere in the Empire- even for the laser fodder- was determining whose orders to follow at the present time, and Vader seemed to be a good option for that when you were trapped on a ship with him and had an interesting in the continuing function of your lungs.

So the stormtroopers resumed positions of perfect posture, and one or two of them even went over to grab Anakin's arms again, though it must be said that they didn't get very far.

-

"Up that lift! There's a few transport options and the secondary communications array!"

"Is he lying?"

Luke sighed. "I don't know, Han. I don't _think _so."

The officer stared at them beseechingly. "I'm not lying!"

Luke had really had no idea he inspired such _fear _in the Empire. Sure, he was one of the last remaining members of a sect of supposed vicious magical anarchists, and admittedly he was a Commander in another supposed group of vicious nonmagical anarchists, and no one in the _Rebellion_ (let alone the Empire)really believed him when he tried to tell them that the Death Star thing had been a lucky shot, but the only truly scary thing he could think of about himself was his parentage, and none of the Imperials even _knew _that.

He thought. He wasn't actually completely sure.

But these people viewed him as some sort of monster. (It wasn't that off from how most Rebels viewed Imperials, but most of Luke's experience had rather proved _that _point of view to be near the truth, so he could probably be forgiven for not considering it.) He wasn't a monster, and he'd spent too long trying to convince _himself _of the truth of that fact to enjoy the Imperial fear.

The officer whimpered slightly, and Han gave the Imperial an incredibly scornful look.

"Let's go," said Luke eventually. He slid his blaster onto the stun setting and shot a bolt of white light at the Imperial officer, who fell to the floor and actually began _snoring._

-

"Take him to the brig, and find Skywalker."

"Find?" It was perhaps the first time in his life the trooper had ever asked for clarification in anything.

"I am not laboring under the delusion he remains in his cell."

"Yes, milord," said the stormtrooper nervously, rather regretting his defiance in daring to speak at all. "Let's move out, boys."

"I'm not going," announced Anakin.

Everyone ignored him.

"I said," repeated Anakin, "that I'm _not _going to any cells. I want answers- Obi-Wan! There you are! What's going on?"

The stormtroopers stared around in mild alarm, apparently coming to the conclusion that this was some sort of distraction ploy, but as Darth Vader turned, the yellow eyes behind his mask narrowed.

_Obi-Wan._

He was not completely ignorant of the existence of force-spirits. But he had killed Obi-Wan, gotten that particular specter of his past out of his life permanently, just as he had Anakin Skywalker, and now he was in the same room as both of them.

He'd seen the force-ghost a few minutes earlier, of course, but a small part of his mind had hoped that maybe if he had ignored it, it would go away.

His old Master clearly had not.

"Why did you turn off the hologram?" Anakin's question was directed at Vader, but once again the young Jedi was ignored. "Don't you want me dead?"

Nope. Still being ignored.

"You should not have come back," intoned Vader.

"You really shouldn't have come after Luke," returned Obi-Wan. The force-ghost sighed. "I remember what you were, Anakin."

"Do _not-_"

"I fear for the galaxy under your rule, if that's what you're planning. And to think, once it just would've been because you'd eliminate speed limits. No, now you're just going to drag your son down the same path you've followed, won't you? I came back, Anakin, because I've been trying to save him from you ever since I couldn't save you from yourself-"

"And now you're going to save us both from him," said Anakin. "I _get _that, could you maybe stop arguing and start slamming some troopers?"

He was once again ignored. He had the sneaking suspicion that, were it not for the white-armored figures once again surrounding him, he could've escaped the room without much notice.

"You understand nothing, Kenobi!"

With an attitude eerily akin to the temper tantrums Anakin had thrown in his youth (and adolescence. And adulthood.), the Sith turned his back on the force-ghost in what could've been a huff.

"_Obi-Wan_!_" _called out Anakin.

It was no use. The force-ghost had vanished, and whether it was because of energy expense or remembrance of his usual reaction to Anakin's tantrums, Anakin couldn't tell. No, it appeared he'd have to handle this situation on his own.

He glanced around him.

He supposed he'd have to start with the stormtroopers.

-

The lift to the communications and transport area bore an uncanny resemblance to a cell that moved up and down, but careful examination bore out that it was in fact an elevator as opposed to a trap. It just had the same "fear-the-empire" grayness that was the norm above the ship.

As the group shot upwards, Luke had time for brief reflection that if the battle for supremacy in the galaxy only involved an interior decorating competition, the Rebellion would have it made. Rundown the Calamari cruisers they used may have been, but at least they featured some color in areas.

The lift reached the communications area without incident, and the three snuck by it, heading towards a large, white-on-black sign reading in simple Aurebesh script "Shipboard Transport Bay 12." Underneath it was scrawled in significantly less neat lettering "Piett is a gundark."

Luke snickered.

_Luke!_

Oh, great. Just what he needed. The young Jedi remained silent.

_Son. I would prefer a peaceful resolution to this situation._

Luke supposed he could grant that he and his father had one thing in common. He decided (perhaps unwisely) to respond.

_Great. We'll meet the other man we brought with us at the shuttle, then._

_I am offering you a position at my side, ruling the galaxy. We will overthrow the Emperor._

They would _what?_

_Return, and your friends will be allowed to leave unharmed._

_Believe it or not, Father, I heard what happened the last time you promised that to someone._ He had been paying slightly more attention to the fact that his hand was gone and having just heard he was the son of his worst enemy than to Lando's diatribe, yes, but the phrase "he said he'd let them go" had been repeated quite enough in a pleading tone for him to get the point.

_You will be returning anyway._

-

Leia was concerned. Luke had stopped dead in the hallway, his face suggesting both that he wasn't completely present and that he was highly annoyed. She tugged on Han's hand to get him to turn around.

"Leia?" The smuggler appeared to notice Luke. "Kid?"

The young Jedi didn't acknowledge them.

"Luke!" hissed Leia as loudly as she could without drawing undue attention to the three fugitives. "Luke, what's wrong?"

The Jedi shook his head slightly, his eyes returning to the here and now but his annoyed expression only getting more annoyed. "We're walking into a trap."

"Well," said Han, "yeah. We're returning to a _room containing Darth Vader."_

Luke merely shook his head again, and sighed. "And, apparently, my glorious rule of the galaxy is about to begin."

-

The Imperial palace was hushed, its halls empty.

The throne room was deserted, the conference rooms nearly so (one contained a group of increasingly confused advisors waiting for a meeting to begin).

And in the hangar bay, the Emperor's luxury shuttle had lifted off the ground, plotting a course towards Anakin Skywalker.


	17. Chapter 17

**Thanks once again to everyone who's read/reviewed/both. (Yes, there is a mild logical fallacy in that statement...)**

**Smiles!**

**Lou.**

* * *

"Stop."

Anakin glanced at Vader, momentarily distracted from his quest to wrestle the blaster away from TH-14. "No." So he was worthy of being noticed now? What a fun change.

"Are you Anakin Skywalker?" The words seemed to be forced out, though it was difficult to tell through the vocorder.

_Of course not. That's why I look exactly like him and have Obi-Wan's ghost following me around._

"Yes." The blaster-wrestling match had turned into a stalemate, as the stormtrooper was now cheating by having his fellows join in.

"Stop." The order this time was directed at the stormtroopers, to Anakin's surprise. For a few seconds, he was even too surprised to grab the blaster, but he recovered quickly.

Almost lazily, Vader blocked the shot.

_Stang. _

"How did you… come here?"

"Shuttle," said Anakin.

There was a moment of stony silence as Anakin weighed the virtues of a second shot and Vader weighed the virtues of trying to strangle Anakin again.

Finally, the Jedi sighed. "You heard the Chancellor. He sent me here, apparently."

"_He was lying."_

Obi-Wan's voice was as clear as day, but the force-ghost himself did not appear.

"How do you know?" asked Anakin, increasingly annoyed. _So now that you're not fighting, you can finally turn your attention to the whole unimportant matter of __**me**__?_

"_Actually," _came the disembodied voice again, _"I'm not completely sure how. Yoda told me."_

"So the Master is finally dead?"

There was no answer to Vader's query.

"_And he's the Emperor, Anakin. Not the Chancellor. Darth Sidious, if you prefer the proper term."_

"He will not," said Vader menacingly, "remain Emperor for long."

At least half of the stormtroopers jumped slightly, and a disembodied sigh was heard by all Force-sensitives within a mile radius (Luke was mildly alarmed).

Then Anakin cleared his throat. "I'll help you."

-

"Take me to Lord Vader."

"What?"

The Rebel remained calm, his face showing no emotion whatsoever, but if anything this alarmed Communications Commander Gerald more.

"Take me to Lord Vader. I'm surrendering."

"_What?"_

This voice came from behind a corner, and another Rebel- this one taller and waving a stolen blaster- came on to the scene.

"That was _not _in the plan, kid."

Gerald gulped. "We are authorized to…"

"Authorized _nothing,"_ said the tall Rebel, still waving the blaster.

"I told you," said the short one- Skywalker- "stay hidden."

"You also said you were getting us a transport!"

Gerald cleared his throat in as dramatic a manner as possible, his face hopefully calm. Behind him, he could feel the incredulous stares of his men. He flicked his eyes back towards them, and unfortunately the implications of the Rebel's next words didn't hit him.

"I _am _getting us a transport."

Oh, great. This was just the best day of Gerald's life, wasn't it? He was embroiled in the middle of some convoluted Rebel scheme that there was no way he got out of alive.

"Complete with your own glorious-rule-of-the-galaxy Imperial guards, I suppose?"

This was good. This was all right. Careful to keep his hand hidden, Gerald gestured to a few of the men behind him. Sure, they were just communications officers- but there was a chance they could still surround the Rebels while the two fought over strategy so stupidly.

A more insightful man than Gerald, in fact, might've wondered just _why _the two Rebels- one the most wanted man in the galaxy- had decided to argue strategy in front of a contingent of top-notch Imperial communications men.

He did begin, however, to wonder why the Rebels were suddenly smirking.

There was a rumbling engine noise coming from the next room, and then the two Rebels took off running towards it.

"The shipboard speeders!" shrieked Gerald. "The Rebels!"

A sudden scramble broke out as the communications men snapped out of their alarmed staring and rushed headlong along after the Rebels, knocking over chairs and more than a few desks and consoles. It was chaos, a disaster, incredibly embarrassing for the men supposed to be the best in the Empire.

And what was worse, by the time a few men had managed to actually get through the door- slamming the unfortunate Commander Gerald to the deck in the process- one of the shipboard transports, flown by a petite brown-haired woman, had already picked up the now broadly grinning Rebels and disappeared down the hall.

-

Over the past two decades, Darth Vader had attempted to banish the emotion of surprise completely from his mind. Palpatine, to the best of his knowledge, had done so, and surprise did not become a Sith.

He had, admittedly, felt an enormous amount of surprise at the very existence of Luke, but he had managed to convince himself that most of it was in fact incredibly quick-on-the-uptake anger, which was in fact his answer to most of the emotions involved in that particular revelation.

Now, today, there had been the development with… Skywalker. He supposed he could not longer call it a thing. Him a thing. No, it would remain it. And he had somehow surprised himself- even Anakin Skywalker had rarely surprised himself- by turning off Palpatine's hologram- but betrayal of the master, even if it was a rather anticlimactic betrayal, was the way of the Sith and logically he should not have been surprised at all.

But there was no way not to be surprised at what had just been said.

"_I'll help you."_

There was hesitation in the statement, but not very much of it. It was, as far as Vader could tell, completely honest, though he felt it was liable to be more along the lines of "I'll help you and then the whole death-match is back on".

"_I'll help you."_

"Well?" said Anakin.

Vader turned away. "I do not require your help. I do not require your existence."

"I don't require yours, either," said the infuriating thing. "And I _especially _don't require Palpatine's."

Vader turned again to regard Anakin. A memory- Vader was certain that it was from the strange mental link with the man in front of him, and certainly not his own, because memories of Skywalker's existence had no place in his mind- of multiple friendly and not-so-friendly lightsaber duels won easily, a flashing blue blade demolishing all comers, chose this time to make itself known.

Mental bragging. Any real doubt that the man in front of him was Anakin Skywalker was effectively erased, then.

The final thought wasn't so much a memory as an idea, namely a vicious mental picture of that same blue blade slicing Sidious's repulsive head from his body.

"Your assistance," repeated Vader, "is not required."

-

"Here it is," said Luke, switching off the engine and whispering. He didn't really think he'd have the element of surprise, but he wasn't going to wear a glowing "target over here" sign either.

Leia looked at him sharply. "We aren't going to make the same mistake we did last time. We can't just rush in."

"I'll go in alone," said Luke.

"That wasn't what I meant. We just need to-"

"No," said Luke. "I'll go in alone."

"Luke," said Han. "Kid. You can't possibly expect us to let you do that."

"I have to," said Luke, his face once again expressionless. "It's me he's after. It's my fight."

They merely stared at him. "Luke," said Leia. "Does he know who… the other…"

"Anakin?" said Luke. "I don't know. But Leia, I _need to do this."_

Han spoke up. "We aren't going to waste all this time spent getting you out of here just to let you face him alone."

That was when the door from the chamber to the hallway opened and Darth Vader stepped out.

-

"Two hours to go."

None of the silent Imperial Guards answered the grim-faced captain, and he had not expected them to.

He did not know why the shuttle was headed for the _Executor. _It was not his duty to know, and he did not want to.

He suspected, with what little of his mind he allowed himself to devote to such things, that this would be his last day alive. Top-secret missions with the Emperor did not tend to leave survivors.

But he would die in the service of his Empire, and someone would give a pension to his grandmother, and while his name would be on no records, they were not necessary.

-

In what passed for a throne in his small area of the ship, Darth Sidious meditated. He was, to be honest, rather disappointed it had taken his apprentice so long to actually rebel- Skywalker, perhaps, had been destined for greatness as a Jedi, but Vader appeared to be destined for mediocrity as a Sith.

But Vader was no longer important. The Force had seen fit to hand him yet another chance at a powerful apprentice- (that would, perhaps, be his other contribution to Sith lore- Most Failed Apprentices), and not only that, but another opportunity for the fun it had been to corrupt Anakin Skywalker.

And if Anakin didn't work out, there was always that other brat. He had planned for months that Vader's son- he would, perhaps, admit that he had failed in not realizing the existence of the boy- would replace his father.

No, the day's setbacks had been only minor, and he would triumph in the end.

Or at least he kept telling himself that.


	18. Chapter 18

**A slightly longer chapter today. Thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed and read!**

**Smiles, Lou.**

* * *

"You have accepted your destiny, then."

It was not what the average person would expect to hear when cornered in a hallway with Darth Vader. (Being on the same ship as the Sith frequently was the same as being cornered.) It was not even what Luke really expected to hear, and even less what he wanted to.

"No," said Luke. "I've come to get…"

"Skywalker," supplied Vader.

Either Han or Leia or possibly both cursed, in enough of a growled whisper that the distracted Luke couldn't tell who it was.

Luke sighed. Yes, he had come to get Anakin Skywalker. A hidden part of him had actually hoped to get two Anakin Skywalkers.

"I'm needed," said Anakin, slipping around the bulkhead suddenly.

Luke stared at the younger version of his father in alarm. "Needed?" For what, some sort of bizarre genetic experiment? Cloning? The Dark Side?

"No, you are not," said Vader, who appeared to be refusing to look at the Jedi.

"We need to fight the Emperor," said Anakin, glaring at the side of Vader's helmet.

Darth Vader still did not turn his head, his mask still turned towards Luke, who stared back, willing himself not to blink too much or suddenly cough. If he was going to be unwilling heir (or one of the heirs, he supposed) to a murdering fiend, then he was at least not going to be a ridiculous farmboy-who-dreams-about-starships-and-has-no-manners sort of heir. _I am a Jedi. _He was going to be _dignified._

Had Anakin just said Vader was going to fight the Emperor?

"_I _will fight the Emperor," said Vader. "My son may possibly assist me. He will need your lightsaber, and that is the only way you may be of service.

"Hang on." This voice was definitely Han.

"You expect us to believe that _you _are going to join the Alliance?" That one was Leia.

"_No."_

Leia quailed back slightly, but her expression was determined. "Then why do you think Luke is going to help you?"

_No, _thought Luke desperately. _You're going to give yourself away if you aren't careful, Leia. He doesn't need to know that you know. And he especially doesn't need to know what else you know. _

-

Obi-Wan had never had perfect timing. He'd been too late to save Qui-Gon. He'd been off on a mission when Anakin fell. He'd managed to arrive at the docking bay on the Death Star at almost precisely the same time as Vader. And that wasn't even counting all the times in his life he'd said the wrong thing, or the right thing too late, or entered a room just in time for Anakin and Padmé to have moved to opposite sides of the couch.

He'd frequently had _good _timing as well, he was sure, but never perfect. And even now, it didn't quite reach that level. But it was, in the books of whoever measured such things, sure to be marked down as at least better than average.

"_Then why do you think Luke is going to help you?"_

His awakening from his twenty minute meditation (it was _not _a nap) had caused him to reappear just in time to hear Darth Vader's furious question.

And, because he was part of a mystical all-encompassing energy field, he was in a position of some authority, and therefore he could say something and did.

"For once you all have the same goal! I know that two of you are Anakin, but even so, Darth, sometimes you need to- to let someone in!"

Perhaps that was the wrong rant, but it had been boiling up in him for over twenty years and it must be admitted that it got everyone's attention.

-

"Yes! Hallelujah! We are getting _out _of here, Chewbacca!"

Wes Janson smiled. Not only had his message apparently made Lando Calrissian's day, there were only five minutes until his banishment to communications was up. Life was good. Life was incredibly good.

From behind him there came a guttural shriek.

"Dan! Dan! What's wrong?"

Wes, Brix, and in fact nearly everyone in the room turned around to stare at the communicator called Dan, who had been listening to encrypted Imperial codes over the latest spy network.

The man's blotchy face sported a vacantly alarmed and disbelieving look.

"Dan," repeated Brix. Behind Wes, the "one-minute until I can leave this dump" alarm he'd set went off, but the pilot ignored it.

"Get Lady Mothma," said Dan, his eyes wide. "Get the entire Council, and get them _now."_

"What happened?" asked Janson.

Dan just stared at him. "_Listen _to this." He held out the headset as if it was some sort of rare tiara, and, shrugging, Janson placed it over his ears.

"_Kriff,"_ said the pilot in appreciative awe.

"What is it?" demanded a Tradoshan, her voice sharp with annoyance.

"Vader," said Janson, his facial expression now akin to Dan's. "The… I mean…"

At least twenty highly annoyed faces or the equivalents glared at him.

"He's _defected."_

While the statement was not precisely true in the way Janson meant it (or in the way at least one communicator heard it, as "defective"), it got at least as much attention as Obi-Wan's rant had.

-

Obi-Wan took full advantage of the fact that he now had five faces (sort of) turned towards him in alarm to immediately head on to his secondary rant.

"And furthermore, we do _not _have enough time to bicker."

Only Luke seemed to agree with this statement. As the force-ghost waited politely for a response, the pilot raised his hand slightly. "Obi-Wan's right."

Let this be in the history books, then, thought Obi-Wan. Someone with the last name of Skywalker had actually admitted that Obi-Wan was right.

Of all people to speak next, it was Vader. "We do not," he said. "He will arrive within the hour. I will allow her Highness, and the Captain to depart, but do not try my patience any longer."

This was getting nowhere. This was getting absolutely nowhere, and they were all going to be destroyed if someone didn't do something soon.

That someone was Anakin.

"Luke!" said the Jedi, in the voice he'd used commanding clones to victory. "Try to flank- what hangar bay will he arrive in?- anyway, flank it. Leia, Solo, um, get on the other side from him. You-" he pointed at the incredulous Vader- "can meet the ship, and _I _will be waiting to back you up."

Now _that, _thought Anakin, was the way to get things done. Brook no argument and just _command._

_Probably rather like the Emperor, _said a very unwanted voice in his head.

"Let's move," said the Jedi to drown it out.

Obi-Wan smiled proudly. "An excellent plan. One flaw." Well, more than one, such as assuming that three people with blasters could in any way "flank" a room containing the Emperor, and the assumption that Vader would listen, but those weren't flaws that could be easily pointed out without bringing the fragile structure of incredulous but nonarguing silence down around them all. "Luke needs a lightsaber, as well."

"He lost his?"

"Yes," whispered Leia to Han. Thankfully, thought Obi-Wan, she did not go into the details, which, while important, were another bringing-it-all-down-on-our-heads bit.

A small sparkle began to appear in the air in front of them. Anakin jumped.

Inside the chamber containing the meditation pod, a metal cabinet began to shake madly, its door slamming open and the contents falling onto the floor. A few dangerous looking artifacts and what may have been a spare helmet rolled only for a short distance before stopping, but a metal cylinder rolled of seemingly its own accord into the hallway.

Anakin bent down to pick it up. It was, as Obi-Wan had supposed, a lightsaber, but what was more unexpected to him was the expression of horror on Anakin's face.

"This was _Qui-Gon's."_

"What?" demanded Vader.

"You- you-"

"That wasn't in the room earlier," said Obi-Wan. "It wasn't in that cabinet, either, Anakin, so please don't interrupt me. Something sent it." The first few sentences were, to the best of his knowledge at least, true. He was fairly sure at least that the last one was as well- but what had sent it?

_Master Qui-Gon?_

There was no answer.

"That makes no sense," said Luke. "You can't just send objects through thin air."

"Or through time," muttered Anakin, still glaring blaster bolts. "It probably followed me."

-

From very far away, a few figures watched them. "This wasn't in the plan originally."

"Needed it, he did. Miss it, Master Jinn will not."

-

Luke pressed himself nervously against the wall. The strange lightsaber- the time-traveling lightsaber, he supposed- felt rather odd in his hand, but he liked it. The green blade was the color he felt he would've chosen himself, for one thing. It lit up the corridor with a friendlier light than did the harsh panels in the ceiling.

But he still felt very alone.

When he was eight, Luke had gone through a comic-drawing stage. His figures were awkward, his lettering near unreadable, and the farm's supply of flimsiplast highly limited, but it had been a fun hobby while it lasted. His last comic had been about a navigator on a spice freighter- Luke hadn't really known what one was supposed to look like, so he'd drawn his favorite type of fighter instead- who fought off pirates single-handedly. It was who he thought his father had been, and he'd proudly shown it to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, expecting to have his hair tousled by a friendly hand and perhaps a fresh-baked snack of some sort.

They hadn't been angry, exactly. They'd just been sort of hurried, and Aunt Beru said she'd put the comic on the wall with the rest of her favorites, but Luke had never seen it again.

Then he'd found out his father was a monster. And then, as if the Force was trying it's best to make up for that, he'd had the chance to meet Anakin Skywalker- and not even really speak to him. Just be ignored by some tall guy with long hair who argued and planned and who Luke felt no connection to at all.

Absently, the Jedi flexed his mechanical hand, feeling pricks of residual pain in the wrist. It felt heavy, and wrong.

Everything felt heavy, and wrong, and foreboding.

In a flash, he knew what it meant.

The Emperor had arrived.

-

Anakin hadn't really meant to mess the plan up.

He really had intended to stay hidden. He really had intended to let evil future-self start the fight, which the Sith at least seemed willing to do even if he had remained silent during the entire planning process.

But seeing Palpatine- his former mentor, his friend, the kindly old Senator- stalk off of that ship- it was a nice ship- and without any discussion at all just send a blast of lightning at future-Anakin, the way Dooku had, and Anakin felt at least half of the pain- well, he couldn't handle it any longer.

A shining blue blade slashed into the middle of the lightning, and battle was joined.


	19. Chapter 19

**I've written almost a hundred pages. Also, I've passed the 150 review mark! Both of these things just really excite me. Thanks to everyone so far who's read/reviewed/encouraged and whatnot. There are just a few more chapters to go now.**

**Smiles!**

**Lou.**

* * *

There was no time to think.

Anakin's face was twisted angrily, his eyes flickering with the reflections of the scene in front of him, blue lightning on bluer saber. It would've made a lovely picture, but there was no time for that either.

There was merely time for Force-guided instinct. Palpatine had been ruling the galaxy for too many years to be surprised by a sneak attack (well, usually), and practically before Anakin's feet stopped sliding on the metal floor, the Emperor too had drawn a lightsaber.

There was a brief moment, eerily familiar in Vader's pain-blurred vision, where Anakin and Sidious circled each other, but that calm did not last. The Emperor struck first, with a flash of red, and Anakin barely countered.

He could not get used to this. It wasn't that it felt unreal anymore- it felt too real, adrenaline brightening the scene and a voice shrieking in his head that he could very well die.

Anakin had been a teenager not too long ago, but he was a warrior. He _knew, _academically, that he could die. He even feared it frequently. But this was his _friend._

Another strike, and Anakin nearly fell. He caught himself against a low counter with one arm, now only one hand- the nonmechanical one- gripping the hilt of his saber.

_This was really all too easy._

The voice in his head was not Vader's. It was a mocking, laughing _horror _of a sound.

This was not his kindly old friend from Naboo in front of Anakin. This was an evil thing that had lied to him, had killed Jedi, had made him into the armored, lightning-scored self now standing up.

There was not a need, however subconscious, to hold back.

The next move for Anakin was still a parry, but he was back on his feet.

A pair of blue eyes met a pair of yellow ones.

And, with a wild slash from Anakin, battle was _truly _joined. The Jedi tried to slice Palpatine's head off, and then met a red blade near his shoulder, and then the battle was moving too fast for even the fighters to follow, a Force-guided flashing of red against blue.

It was oddly hypnotizing in a scary sort of way, and that was why at first Luke didn't move. He'd seen lightsaber battles before- at least two of them, only one of which he'd actually been an active participant in- but nothing like this. Ben and Vader had been old, and tired, and besides that Ben hadn't actually been trying. His duel with his father was mostly a forgotten haze of pain and light and screaming NO! at the top of his lungs, and besides which he'd been a half-trained boy with no real idea what he was doing other than "rescue friends and fight the scary Bad Guy."

_This _was a lightsaber battle. It was not, in fact, particularly impressive by historical standards- it was merely two humans moving in a fairly straight line directly towards Luke's hallway, with no room for fancy leaps or spinning or cyborgs with four arms- but the fact remained that if it had involved two people who _weren't _pretty much deciding the future of his galaxy, it would've been pretty cool to watch.

It also would've been a major improvement not to have them moving towards his hallway. He'd had quite enough of being in narrow spaces with people flinging weapons around. Plastering himself against the wall, the young Jedi managed to get out of the corridor. He turned to join Anakin the fight- the first test for the Lightsaber of Time Travel!- only to have to jump several yards out of the way of a flying blue saber.

Perhaps Anakin did not need help. Certainly, thought Luke bitterly, it was clear he didn't want it.

This, like many of Luke's assumptions that day, was rather unfair. Anakin would've been mildly annoyed at another person joining _his _life or death battle of revenge, but he certainly hadn't _meant _to almost hit his fellow Jedi. It'd been yet another wild, rage-borne swing, and it was truly accidental that it almost gave Luke a new haircut.

Still, self-pity was something Luke had done rather well recently, as much as he hated himself for it.

-

In the secondary hallway, Leia and Han had had a few problems of their own (someone had forgotten to inform the crew of the ship about the whole "having the same goals" bit, and there'd been a brief firefight before Artoo, annoyed at having been left out of the battle proper, did his part by closing and locking some blast doors). But, that distraction gone, they could once again turn their attention to the hangar bay.

"Luke!" hissed Han. "Luke!"

His friend, walking purposely out into the hangar and fending off a few shots from a guard, did not respond.

"Luke!"

Leia squinted her eyes. "What is he _doing?"_ It was a rhetorical question, and the Alderaani sighed. Ever since his first words to her ("I'm here to rescue you!" with that childish grin), she'd known one thing about Luke Skywalker, and that was that her brother was a hopeless idealist. And under normal circumstances, she would have been almost glad to see the return of that endearing facet of his personality after Bespin.

But this was taking things too far.

"Kid!" This time Han had yelled it.

Luke was now under attack from multiple royal guards. He was putting his life in large amount of unnecessary danger. And, worst of all, he appeared to be fending off the shots and pikes while helping Darth Vader to his feet.

Leia muttered something very uncomplimentary towards the concept of idealism in general (never mind that it was the main power source for the Rebellion) before firing off a few shots in the direction of the guards still standing near the ship. She'd never had the best aim, but at least two of the guards were now down.

Maybe these were force-powers or something. She'd forgotten to ask General Kenobi if she was supposed to have any. But something did seem to be guiding her shots.

A few shots from the occupant of that hallway proved that Han's blaster maintained its aiming defect. He swore, and Leia treated him to a reflexive sigh. He reflexively grinned.

Luke now came sprinting towards them, followed by a black-armored figure.

_Stang it all, Luke, I don't want a family reunion. Get him out of here! _She came very close to saying that out loud, but had to settle for a startled yelp (_I'm a leader of the Alliance. Leaders of the Alliance do not yelp just because relatives with lightsabers come hurtling past them.)_ as both men tore past her in the same general direction Anakin had gone.

Though, admittedly, in a completely different hallway. Han, standing to follow them, wondered if they knew this.

-

His son had not _saved his life_, and Darth Vader banished that thought as he had banished so many others recently. He would've been easily able to handle the Imperial Guard, and if anything, Luke had merely gotten in the way. The boy remained an overenthusiastic and incompetent fighter.

There was a limit to how much even Vader could lie to himself.

Luke, despite being trained by Obi-Wan, a member of a group of anarchists, and near-hopelessly embroiled in the remnants of a dead order, had just run out in the middle of a firing group of the Imperial elite to save the life (even if Vader could've handled the situation himself perfectly well) of the man who'd chopped off his hand.

The hallway led more-or-less parallel to the route of Sidious and… Skywalker. Anakin. It. They connected on the balcony of a secondary command area.

Curse it all. That in all likelihood meant leaping around, and in case no one had noticed, he was _not _Yoda.

There also remained the slight problem that there were people _in _the secondary command area. He did not, under normal circumstances, particularly care for the safety of his crew- he was one of the threats to the longevity of his crew- but for some reason he found himself hoping they would have the sense to run.

"Do you know where we're going?" Luke was slightly out of breath.

It was really no wonder the Rebellion was losing. Vader declined to answer his son. The boy should be able to tell where the battle was by using the Force. If he had not even been trained that much, Vader would have some words for the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi once it returned from meditation.

The door to the balcony now came into view. Luke leapt off the edge (a Bespin flashback sent the same unwanted pang into Vader's mind that Bespin itself had), and Vader managed to follow, the leap being only ten feet or so.

The sight that met the eyes of father and son was not one that they had been hoping to see.


	20. Chapter 20

**Another chapter! I was tempted to leave this one on a much worse cliffie, but this weekend's hiatus is going to encompass Friday too due to that fact that we're leaving early, and I didn't want to let my original idea stew for three days.**

**Thanks as always to all the reviewers! See y'all Monday.**

**Smiles, Lou. **

* * *

There were several things going on now that Han had not expected.

Admittedly, that had been his life for the past few years- first getting involved in a cause other than "make money", and then falling genuinely in love, and then ending up frozen in carbonite. If someone had told him once that in a few years he'd be personally tortured by Darth Vader while dating the guy's daughter, he in all probability would've shot them. Not fatally, or anything, just to prevent them from accessing more spice.

Still, even now, he still had the capability to be surprised.

Being on a ship with the ruler of the galaxy was enough, in terms of being something he'd never really considered actually happening. But overall, the most surprising thing, really, was the concept of Emperor Palpatine with a lightsaber.

It wasn't exactly common knowledge that the Emperor was a Sith at all- even if he had managed to convince the galaxy that their protectors for millennia were in fact evil, revealing himself to be a Sith- the bad guys in those annoying "and dangling from the side of the speeder was a hook" stories- would have been stretching public credulity a bit too far.

The Emperor with a lightsaber was the sort of thing you'd possibly expect a recruit to have a nightmare about, or some jokester to draw a picture of, but it was overall about as unlikely as a Tatooine farm boy blowing up the Death Star.

The Rebellion was really no place for a cynic.

And now, in arguably the development most probable to have a past version of himself (not that they needed any more time travelers. Anakin was bad enough.) screaming into his ear about what an idiot he was being, Han, with Leia following him, was tearing down the hallway in pursuit of Luke and Darth Vader.

This train of thoughts (particularly the horrible concept of a host of more annoying time travelers) was probably why he didn't notice he'd gotten shot in the shoulder until he was already knocked to the ground.

-

Anakin was going to need a new mechanical arm.

He supposed that he was grateful he hadn't lost his remaining original arm, meaning that he was still much, much better off than his future self, but nevertheless both the wrench to his shoulder and the pain receptors installed to warn of emergency had _hurt._

There was also the minor matter that when his arm had gotten sliced off, it had taken his lightsaber with it, and he could no longer even tell where it was.

Oh. There it was. Palpatine was stepping on it.

Before Anakin could act on his new plan (trip him), however, his saber had been kicked across the floor, beyond his reach even with the Force.

Blast it. Blast and stang it all.

And that smile on his enemy's face could not bode well.

Anakin tensed, preparing for a possible death blow. _I love you, Padmé._

And then came a few more of the memories, and one strange, unbidden vision of a dark room and a young man in black throwing away a saber.

-

Palpatine was not one to give up easily, and not one to kill quickly, either. As Vader and Luke rushed down the hallway, still minutes from their destination, the Emperor had supposed he had at least the time he needed to instill a few doubts about his chosen allies in the mind of this new Anakin Skywalker.

Then Anakin had proceeded to spit at the lower edge of his robe, but that was still fine. Anger. Anger was a quality that truly became a Sith, and the first time around Skywalker had even turned his beloved mentor-figure in to the Council before joining him.

But then Anakin had relaxed. His face had calmed, and despite the fact that he was clearly in pain- a dislocated shoulder, in all probability. Easy to repair and even easier to make more painful- a slight smile grew on the young man's face.

"No," whispered Anakin Skywalker. "I am a Jedi."

And though they couldn't actually hear him, it was that remark that Luke and Vader punctuated with their landing, and now the Emperor's day was officially ruined.

But there might still be hope, thought Palpatine, facing the new threats.

-

Meanwhile, in the ethereal plane, Obi-Wan's day was approaching a state of ruination as well.

"Last time you told me to leave! Why won't you let me this time?"

This was impossible. He couldn't materialize. He could barely even see the corporeal world where his second chance was fighting for it's life.

A howl of pain through the Force was so obviously Anakin that Obi-Wan nearly howled too.

"Let me out of here, Yoda! How are you even doing this?"

There was no answer, and while Obi-Wan could yell, he still could not move.

-

Anakin had been a challenge, a rather refreshing one. Until he'd made that mistake and allowed Sidious to slice off his mechanical arm- no sense in amputating the genuine one when he thought he could get a more useful apprentice this time- the Emperor had actually had to consider the possibility that he might lose the duel.

Now, however, he was not particularly worried. Vader was a skilled fighter, at least in a direct, slashing sort of way, but he had nowhere near the ability of his younger self. And the brat was still half-trained. Talented, Sidious had to admit as he dodged the green flash that ended the standoff, but imprecise and rough.

Still. He would make a fine apprentice, much better than either incarnation of failure now in the room.

Brief flashes of emotion radiated off of the boy- he had no idea how to shield his mind at all- worry, fear, anger. Exactly what Palpatine wanted, of course. And weaknesses.

If only he wasn't necessary, he would've been so _fun _to destroy.

And perhaps the best part of all was who the boy was fighting for. It would not at all be difficult to make him kill Vader, and- oh, this was excellent.

He was practically turned against Anakin already.

-

"Han!"

The former smuggler winced. "I'm all right, Leia." There was a huge burn across his shoulder, his shirt was scorched, and it stung miserably, but it wasn't exactly the first time he'd gotten hit by a blaster. It wasn't even the first- or second- time that particular _shoulder _had. "Get them!"

She fired off a few shots in the direction of the troopers now aiming at them- she was much better at that than she gave herself credit for- but still turned back to him. "They're gone."

He wasn't blind anymore. Besides, even if his vision was a little fuzzy still, you could hear boots on these metal floors from probably a thousand parsecs away.

"They'll be back." Or, at least, others would. Luke would probably have felt guilty about shooting troopers when the real enemy that they should've been focused on was the Emperor, but his Royal Evilness wasn't exactly in target range, now was he?

"Can you walk?"

"It's my _shoulder,_ Leia." He knew what she meant, of course. He could've landed painfully, he could've been in too much pain to move, she could've (this was the preferred explanation) just wanted an excuse to put her arms around him and help him to his feet.

"We'd better keep going after Luke."

Leia's face suddenly went pale. "He's in trouble."

He didn't ask how she knew that. He didn't really want to know how she knew that, to be honest, because the ability to read someone else's mind or communicate through thoughts or something still freaked him out even if he had had to long since grudgingly admit that that Luke could do a bunch of other weird things defying explanation.

They just would have to keep moving on.


	21. Chapter 21

**And here's the newest chapter! Thanks so much to all who've read/reviewed.**

**Smiles, Lou.**

* * *

Luke was definitely in over his head.

For a few seconds at the beginning of the duel, he was fighting Palpatine on his own, and he was losing horribly. He was losing horribly even thought his opponent was quite clearly baiting him. He hadn't gotten in a single strike of his own since beginning the fight- just parrying the red saber inches before it sliced his head off.

And then there was the place on the floor where some fleeing officer had spilled caf.

Luke slipped, because even in the middle of battle he was only somewhat immune to the laws of physics, and then there was a giant flare of red light headed exactly for the center of his head and he couldn't block it and-

Vader parried, two red blades meeting inches from Luke's alarmed face.

The Jedi scrambled to his feet, and there were at least twenty frantic seconds of fighting, the room filling with the hisses of lightsaber blades. Luke could barely think, instinct guiding his saber, and his mind filling with at least as many hisses as the room was.

It occurred to him that he did not like lightsaber fighting as much as he had originally thought he would that day on Tatooine when Ben had handed him Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber.

Actually, he would be quite happy never to do this again.

Luke managed to remember a small bit of training from Yoda, leaping and flipping to land behind the Emperor. He thought for a very brief moment that perhaps he now had the upper hand- or at least the element of surprise- but then Palpatine's lightsaber came flying through the air.

Luke's determination to never get into a lightsaber fight again was now in conflict with a desire to learn how to throw things at his enemies.

Enough to distract them, apparently, while said enemy sent a blast of Force-lightning at Vader.

-

Anakin was blurry-eyed. The room he was in didn't seem completely real anymore- a haze of bright lights and computer screens, with shouts and hisses and a clash of light and dark.

He wasn't even sure if he was seeing it or not, or if it was all in his head.

Maybe this had all been a dream, and he'd wake up next to Padmé.

To be honest, he'd settle for having Obi-Wan shake him awake on some miserable dusty battlefield with rocks carefully positioned under all sleeping areas.

No such luck.

"Anakin!"

Or maybe there was.

"Five more minutes."

"Anakin, listen to me! Get up!"

"Go away, Obi-Wan." Now the room was getting even blurrier, just flashes of red and green with clouds everywhere.

"_Anakin!"_

The voice was as faint and hazy as the room.

Maybe now they would let him sleep.

-

"_Anakin!"_

It was no use. Obi-Wan's time traveling friend was not answering him. "Anakin!"

"Fight his own battle, he can. Fight for himself."

Right. Fight for himself. Fight for himself against Obi-Wan until the lava of Mustafar consumed everything. Fight the nightmares by himself.

But it was true. Anakin could fight for himself. It was all he'd really ever done, because Obi-Wan had been such a fool, and never even thought to consider that maybe he needed real help, or real advice, or someone to confide in about a secret marriage.

There was no argument there that Obi-Wan could think of that would stand a chance of convincing Yoda of anything.

"Part of the plan, your return is _not,"_ said the Master with an air of finality.

And that was when Obi-Wan Kenobi snapped.

"Part of the plan? The _plan_? What plan, exactly? The same one where I told Luke that his father killed his father because I didn't trust him to handle the truth?"

Yoda made his incredibly annoying humph noise. "My plan, that was not, and-"

"He's not a tool, Yoda, he's Anakin! And he needs all the help he can get, now _let me go!"_

"No," said Yoda.

For a second the two Jedi glared at each other, Obi-Wan's transparent fists clenched at his sides and his face turning an interesting purple color.

-

Palpatine smiled.

Vader was not dead yet, and that was not his intent. The boy could kill him, and perhaps future apprentices would learn a thing or two about putting family above galactic domination.

For the second time that day- though this one was part of the plan- a Skywalker yelled something incoherent and blocked some lightning.

Excellent. With a casual flick of the hand not being used for lightning purposes, the Emperor summoned his lightsaber from where it had been rolling around the floor.

"You don't want me to kill him?" inquired Palpatine.

The boy, his face twisted in righteous fury, didn't answer at first.

Good.

"No."

It was said with perhaps more conviction than the Emperor would've preferred, but that was inconsequential.

"He maimed you, killed your family- he is much better off dead, boy."

Skywalker's eyes flicked involuntarily towards his mechanical hand. If Sidious had wanted to, he could have killed him then, when his attention was distracted, but then there would be a significant dearth of apprentice candidates.

"No," repeated the boy, his voice less sure.

This was much easier than it really had any right to be.

-

"We need to go this way." Leia's voice was sure.

Han gave her an odd look. "Luke went that way."

Leia shook her head, trying to dispel the fogginess. "It's just a feeling. We've got to go this way."

Han in all probability wasn't going to follow her, was he? She supposed it made some sense. Luke's unexplainable lightsaber abilities had pretty much coincided with a strange need to rescue the forces of evil from the other forces of evil. Any unexplainable abilities on her part were liable to incite suspicion.

"Are you sure?"

She looked him full in the face. "I'm sure."

And then he took off ahead of her.

Following him, unable to completely suppress an urge to laugh, Leia felt that maybe everything would be alright in the end.

-

"Yargh!"

It was the oddest noise Obi-Wan had ever heard Yoda make, including that unfortunate singing incident.

But, then again, it was under incredibly odd circumstances.

"Run!" yelled Qui-Gon.

If the situation had been any less dire, Obi-Wan probably would've stared for quite some time at the unexpected sight of his former Master acting on his long professed urge to tackle Yoda "and get him to understand that there is more to the Force than the Council's rules."

In fact, Obi-Wan was tempted to do so now. It was just so _ludicrous. _He wanted a portable hologram of it to give Anakin.

But that was not an option if he wanted there to be an Anakin.

"Sorry, Master," said Obi-Wan, not completely sure whether he was apologizing to the frantic Qui-Gon or the irate and stunned Yoda.

Then, relieved to be able to leave at last, the force-ghost headed at high speed for the corporeal plane.

-

Anakin wasn't sure where he was. It was cloudy, and odd, and didn't feel very real at all.

And he was fairly sure he wasn't alone.

Flickering in and out of existence in much the way he seemed to be, there was another figure, who also seemed to be himself.

Anakin wasn't sure whether to hope the whatever-it-was was future-self or not.

"Hello?"

The thing was still now, but still flickering. So was Anakin. He felt like a broken hologram, and wondered for a second if perhaps he was dead.

His eyes met that of the other figure, and he was relieved beyond measure that they were not the sickening yellow he'd seen for a second in that weird meditation chamber.

And then they were.

And then they weren't.

Anakin decided that this was very, very annoying. "My eyes aren't doing that too, are they?"

It didn't answer him.

Anakin tried a new tactic. "I think we need to get out of here."

There was a moment of brief surprise on the thing's face. Maybe it hadn't seen him before.

"I really think we need to get out of here."

From very far away, there came the sound of a scuffle.

"_Run!"_

"_Sorry, Master!"_

It sounded like Obi-Wan.

"I don't want to be dead," said Anakin, trying to hold the attention of the thing in front of him. "And I don't want Luke to be dead. And I think we need to get out of here."

Finally, finally, the thing- it may have been himself, it may not have, and he really didn't care right now- actually nodded.

"Let's go."

-

Leia had managed to overtake Han, sprinting at full speed down the hallway. She could see the closed doors that she knew she had to open now.

Before she could do anything, though, they flew open of their own accord. Beside them stood Obi-Wan, rapidly sweeping one transparent hand through the air.

A silver cylinder- a lightsaber- flew through the doorway and into Leia's hand.

General Kenobi smiled.

Luke was bowing his head, his eyes flickering from the Emperor to his father.

In wherever-he-was, Anakin began to feel world shift from the cloudy place to the haze of lights again.

Then Leia moved in.

"Get away from my brother."


	22. Chapter 22

**This is it, y'all. I hope you enjoy the final chapter, and thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed and read. It's really brought a lot of joy to me these past few weeks.**

**Smiles!**

**Lou.**

* * *

"We have to get out of here! Come on!"

Darth Vader stared irritatedly at Anakin. He sincerely doubted this was a place they could leave. In all probability, in fact, they were _dead. _All his plans had come to absolutely nothing, his son was in the same trap he had been once, and he was stuck in this miserable foggy afterlife with a past version of himself.

"I think it's this way!"

The fog did seem to be lifting, if it came to that. There were a few flickering lights, but they seemed too far away to bother with.

"Leave me here."

Anakin turned around to face him and raised his eyebrows. "No. Come on."

Had he really been this annoyingly persistant when he was younger? He'd just given someone an order- that order did not need to be repeated, it needed to be obeyed. Immediately. Upon pain of death.

He was considering what options he had for enacting this punishment on Anakin- and if killing his past self would lead to existence problems- when of all things he heard Leia Organa's voice.

"Get away from my brother."

Vader stared at Anakin.

"Did I forget to mention that?" The abomination's expression was sheepishly sarcastic.

"Padmé had twins." She had twins. He had _two _children. He had come so close to killing _two _of his children.

"_Now_ can we go?"

There was no answer, because none was necessary.

"Finally," muttered the time traveler, jogging towards the lights.

-

Bad guys lied.

That had been a feature of his old bedtime stories when Luke was small, and it was something he'd believed for years afterwards.

Ben Kenobi didn't lie, and Darth Vader did.

Even after Bespin, there had been a sense in Luke's mind that even if sometimes good people were afraid to tell him the truth, and maybe bad people couldn't lie constantly, there had remained a sense that lies were bad and truth was good.

But everything the Emperor said was the truth.

Ben had lied to him, Yoda had lied to him, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had lied to him.

And in a soothing, avuncular tone, the Emperor was telling the truth.

Vader had killed Luke's family- or at least had ordered them dead. He'd killed Ben, had almost had Leia executed, turned Han over to Jabba, had shot at Luke over the Death Star.

Luke was probably the only person in the galaxy foolish enough to believe that his father was anything other than evil.

He was not so foolish, however, that he didn't realize that this situation was Darth Vader's life or his.

And then he made his decision.

It never actually saw the light of day (or of fluorescent ceiling panels, at least), because he made it at almost exactly the same time that Leia caught the lightsaber, but nevertheless Luke was fairly proud of himself.

Because he wasn't going to kill his father on the advice of the same person who'd turned Anakin- even if Anakin hadn't said two words to him- into a monster. And he wasn't going to turn himself into a monster, either.

But it seemed that life only had room for one dramatic statement at that particular place and time, and so Luke's struggle remained internal, expressed only in a relieved smile at the sight of his twin.

-

His future-self seemed to have vanished, but Anakin still felt like he was caught in the middle of a sandstorm.

_You aren't supposed to be out there. Stay._

If there was one thing the young Jedi was very, very bad at, however, it was following orders. Maybe he wasn't supposed to be out there, supposed to be in this time period at all, in fact, but he hadn't been supposed to fall in love or have children or ever leave Tatooine, and those decisions seemed to have worked out quite well.

Sort of.

The voice telling him to stay also sounded familiar, though he couldn't quite place how. Whoever it was, they were almost certainly an authority figure of his least favorite sort. Better grammar than Master Yoda, and meaner than Obi-Wan (besides, Obi-Wan wouldn't appreciate Anakin staying out of the battle now that it had already started).

Even summoning his last reserves of strength, Anakin failed to wake up.

-

"Let him go."

"Allow into plan person who just tackled me, I will not."

Qui-Gon sighed. "Your plan was ruined the moment Luke got himself captured, Yoda. We need to improvise, and we need to let Anakin go."

He was treated to a glare.

"I remain prepared to use violence, Yoda."

In all honesty, he really didn't. Sure, finally getting back at Yoda for all those whacks with gimer sticks had been fun, but overall Qui-Gon Jinn was a fairly nonviolent person.

"Too late it is," said Yoda sadly.

"What?"

"Returned to battle, Skywalker has."

Qui-Gon smiled. _That_ was the Anakin he'd wanted so badly to train.

-

It really was not a good day for plans in general.

Palpatine remained deeply irritated with himself for failing to be aware of the existence of Luke Skywalker. The concept that Senator Amidala had in fact had twins- he supposed they had to be twins, at least, unless he was losing his touch completely- was the last straw.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps the last straw was the fact that, Vader and Anakin having woken up, the Emperor was now surrounded by five angry people, three of whom had lightsabers and one of whom had a blaster. (Its aiming mechanism was broken, but the Sith had no way of knowing this).

Still prepared for emergency, however, Palpatine shot a blast of lightning that knocked Luke Skywalker off of his feet. Organa had run forward, but she was completely untrained and her strike was easily parried.

Now Vader was sufficiently distracted, having stepped over to help his son to his feet. The boy was shaking his head slightly, clearly still in pain.

Served him right.

There were also blaster shots burning into the floor, walls, and desks surrounding him, but this was more of a minor distraction than anything. But they were a distraction.

As Palpatine looked slightly down to block a bolt coming too near him, Anakin yelled some word of advice and Organa managed to trap his saber under her own. He would have to outlaw the teaching of fencing to students of anything anywhere. It must have been part of Alderaani royal curriculum.

It was not really what he would've chosen to be his second-to-last thought.

His last was an internal shriek of rage and one final outpouring of lightning as his former apprentice stabbed him through the heart.

And then collapsed.

-

Luke Skywalker stood on the bridge of the _Executor, _staring out into space.

Anakin walked up to him. "I'm… I'm sorry."

"My father died on the Light," said Luke almost absently. "Don't be sorry."

"_You_ almost died, and I wouldn't have even had a conversation with you," said Anakin, apparently attempting to set a record for guiltiest tone of voice. Luke _had _just spent quite some time in bacta recovering from some lightning-related injuries and a lightsaber wound to the side that had gone unnoticed during the final fight.

Anakin was almost glad that Luke had been unconscious, actually. The time-traveler had managed to intercept the "Darth Vader's Dead!" card and bouquet sent to him by various of his compatriots among the Rebellion, but the near-unending stream of holograms from the still-ongoing victory party in the Fleet weren't what the man needed right now.

He was also still trying to get used to the concept of no longer having an evil-future-self. Even if he had turned back to the Light, the fact remained that he'd _died. _Even if Anakin had managed to get him back in time to start fighting again, he'd just died _again._

Anakin was fairly sure the foggy place had been the afterlife, anyway. It had been sort of nice, if one could ignore the whole "dead" factor.

Then two figures materialized on the deck beside Anakin and Luke.

"You need to go home now, Anakin," said Obi-Wan.

"Thank you," added the other figure. It was once again the foggy-place version of his future self, minus the color-changing eyes.

Anakin didn't quite know how to respond to the thanks- he still felt guilty- and instead turned to Ben. "Home?"

"To your version of the timestream," said Obi-Wan. "It's rather complicated, and Yoda claims he's too busy to fully explain it, so he clearly doesn't understand it either. This future- here- stays here, with the past intact and whatever happens next. You go home, and sort of create another future, and they exist side by side. Fraternal twins, if you will. But you really need to leave now. I wasn't even supposed to let you wait until Luke woke up."

Anakin closed his eyes. He clapped one hand on Luke's shoulder, and the man turned around from his conversation with transparent-blue-Anakin. "Good luck. Tell Han and Leia I'm sorry I had to go without saying goodbye."

Luke smiled. "I will. Tell mother hello."

And with that, Anakin Skywalker faded.

-

"Yes!" said Mace Windu. "This does mean I can go back?"

He'd gotten trapped in the ethereal realm by attempting to follow Anakin. ("Skywalker! You're going the wrong way!"), and was heartily sick of the place.

"Return, you can," said Yoda.

"Good."

Another Yoda entered the scene. "And-"

"Too late," said the first Yoda. "Gone, he is."

A few visions of the future filled the second Yoda's mind. Mace returning to the Temple and immediately riding over to the Senate building to slice the Supreme Chancellor's head off, Obi-Wan shooting General Grievous, a brunette woman and a tall, scruffy man standing at an altar while a middle-aged Anakin scowled in the front pew (mumbling something about carbonite and the right idea), and overall happiness.

"Fixed this up, we have," he said. "But enforced, I still feel attachment rule should have been."

A third Yoda ambled onto the scene. "Just because the joy of my relationship with Yaddle you will never know, does not mean bitter you must be!"

The first Yoda sighed. "Still in better shape than mine, your worlds are."

Suddenly there were many versions of the short green Jedi Masters, all shaking their heads.

"My world, requires assistance next it does!"

"My world, in worse shape it is!"

And so it went on. But far away from the bickering green Jedi, there was a bit more happiness then there had been in the beginning.

Their mission had been accomplished.


End file.
